Welcome to the Party - shame this movie doesn't make us give a fig about it.

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2002)

'54' is about 'Studio 54' a night club and, in particular, one young man who works there - Shane O'Shea (played by the stunning Ryan Phillippe). Shane is dissatisfied with his homelife, as young male movie protagonists are wont to be, so he decides to work in the New York club everyone is raving about - 'Studio 54'. Getting in on the salacious looks of 54's boss, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers), Shane gets to meet a variety of people and experience a life of new excesses, which will shape his whole life - because it would be a boring movie if they did not.
Right the problem with '54' is that. well we never get much of a feel for the titular place. '54' was, apparently, a place of hedonism, of pushing the boundaries of pleasure and so forth - the movie instead presents us with a slightly risquÃ© club, but nothing shocking or, more pointedly, memorable about it. Yes there're drugs - ohhh! Scary! Yes sex occurs - but in a low-key tame manner. Yes there's some glitz in the club - but hardly anything spectacular. So the quintessential heart of the movie isn't really beating - it's up to the characters to try and keep the body pumping. Unfortunately, with one exception, they're all rather dull. Shsne doesn't really do much except Fall For Girl Who He Should Not Fall For - a stock plot device that's tired. He forms a few friendships but they're never all that convincing. Is this a fault of Phillipe? Probably not because he can rise above being a very very pretty face (which is what he's in this movie for). His friend, Greg (Breckin Meyer), is dull and Greg's girlfriend Anita (Selma Hayek in an unworthy performance), is - in her thin sketchedness - a perfect companion. It's only Myers performance as Rubell that we see an actual character forming - this being clearly Myers' best performance, with a great touch of eternal sadness invested into the character that allows him to command the movie any time he is on screen.
Written and directed by Mark Christopher, this movie was apparently not what the director originally intended. Certainly there doesn't seem to be much of a vision here, as the movie ambles along to a somewhat obvious and certainly bland conclusion (admittedly, being based on fact it had no choice - that doesn't mean we have to be bored on the journey). There's nothing stand out about any of Christopher's work here. it doesn't really show any spirit but it's certainly no `Battlefield Earth'. Perhaps if his original picture was intact - which purported to really give us a flavour of '54' and the people - then this movie would be decent. As it is it's fairly bland, saved only by the eye candy of the male and female leads. 3/10.