Disco Sucks

Who in the hell is Mark Christopher, and why was he allowed to write and direct a movie about Studio 54?

The material is so rich, so timely, so easy–sex, drugs, disco. How can anyone take such a simple formula and make it seem so horribly dull? Nevertheless, here's our freshly minted Miramax auteur with his drama-less drama about the legendary New York nightclub of the late ’70s, the icon of decadence that defined an era of careless self-indulgence. What could have been a wistfully ironic look at a bygone time–a way of life that won't be coming back any time soon–is instead a feeble, disjointed mess populated by cardboard characters propped up only by the soundtrack.

Don't get me wrong–I'm all for rewarding fresh young talent with big studio picture deals, but why give such an important project to someone who clearly has little conception of how to tell a story, create a character, or convey a conflict? Did anybody bother to read the script before they started filming it? From start to finish, Mark Christopher's 54 is a big disappointment to anyone who's fascinated by this slice of American pop culture history.

Apparently, Mr. Christopher (whose only previous credit was a short film called Alkali, Iowa) had big goals in mind when he conceived the script–too bad he had little clue about how to actually achieve them. From the figments onscreen, you can gather that he intended to create a panorama of characters, telling their personal stories against the backdrop of the discotheque and thus conveying the era and its mindset through their eyes. Kind of like Boogie Nights. But unlike Boogie Nights, none of 54's characters or their supposed problems inspire the least bit of interest–only familiarity, since they all seem plucked from other movies.

Our hero is 19-year-old Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe), an uneducated yet handsome kid who lives in Jersey City with his small family in a cramped little house. He dreams of hitting the dance floor of Studio 54, the hippest nightclub in town, famous for its celebrity clientele and its long lines of common folk vying to get in past the velvet rope. More importantly, he sees the club as his entrée into the good life–his way of escaping the dreary future that awaits him in Jersey. Perhaps he was inspired by a showing of Saturday Night Fever, in which John Travolta's character had the exact same quandary. In this case, Shane wants to get a job as a bartender at 54, which means mucho money and connections.

After he all-too-easily gets his start as a busboy at the club, he meets Anita (Salma Hayek), a coatcheck girl and aspiring disco singer, and her busboy husband, Greg (Breckin Meyer), who let him bunk at their apartment. Then there's Julie Black (Neve Campbell), a former Jersey girl who's now a successful soap star whom Shane yearns for, and Disco Dottie (Ellen Dow), a septuagenarian disco dancer and drug abuser who befriends him. But most importantly, there's Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell (Mike Meyers), who's portrayed as sort of the puppet master of ’70s excess, the guy who symbolizes everything that's good and bad about the era, the character to whom all plotlines lead.

Unfortunately, there are no plotlines to follow. Nothing much of import happens. Shane busies himself at his job. He gets promoted to bartender. His friend Greg gets jealous. He has a date with Julie. Steve makes a pass at him. And to all this we say: So what? Who cares? None of these individual dramas (for lack of a better term) actually lead to any sort of conflict that defines the characters, not even our main guy. From the start, Shane is ready and willing to take drugs and prostitute himself–but by the end, he's no longer into that. Why? Who knows–certainly nothing onscreen happens that makes his character change, although he does get a funny look on his face when somebody drops dead on the dance floor one night. As played by Phillippe, Shane is an awfully pretty boy who doesn't really know what he's doing, ever. This is not the stuff of compelling main characters.

The only hope 54 has of offering some redeeming entertainment value is in its recreation of the famed club–and although it was shot at the now empty former theater, this is also botched. Mostly, Christopher offers many, many shots of people dancing and crowding each other at the bar. With the exception of the famous "man in the moon" coke spoon sculpture, this could be any club, anywhere. If you're seeking an immersive experience into the deepest, darkest confines of the world's most famous disco, you're not going to get it in 54. You'd be much better off watching the E! documentary, which at least gives you some sense of club's mystique.

Sadly, all this puts to waste a good performance from Mike Meyers as Rubell, who obviously went to great lengths to portray the man. With his drug-glazed leer and oozing chortle, Meyers' Rubell is oddly compelling–but he's a lonely character drifting in the empty vacuum of Christopher's script, lacking anything interesting to say.

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