Fifty Four . Newcity Chicago . 08-31-98

Fifty Four

DIRECTED BY: Mark Christopher

REVIEWED: 08-31-98

Mike Myers is a nerdy, 'luded Mephistopheles as 1970s disco impresario Steve Rubell in Mark Christopher's "54," and he's really good, inhabiting a downbeat role with flustered grace. The body language he provides Rubell is always at odds with his body, like a marionette just learning to function on its own. The lugubriously paced movie is another story. While Christopher displayed a certain amount of grace in his short "Alkali, IA," "54" bears the unmistakable stamp of a film that has been much-massaged yet little finessed. There's more narration than dialogue in this strangely joyless litany of drug-taking and ill-choreographed dancing, the episodic telling hiccups through subplots, and the advance-touted gay content is present only in a few clumsy lines vomited up by Rubell. (Most of the sustained dialogue are in expository exchanges.) Ryan Phillippe stars as a Jersey boy who wants the glamour of the room, and joins the ranks of pumped, hairless-chested bar backs and bartenders in too-tight, package-enhancing satin gym shorts. He meets coworkers such as Salma Hayek as a coat check girl and singer wannabe and thrusts himself into the sea of banal intrigues. While he may be escaping a miserable lower-class life to go to his dreamland, the folks he finds there are no less prosaic, mostly inarticulate, untalented boobs. Phillippe's character is another of those only-in-the-movies protagonists who only half-compromises, remaining as pure as the driven slush. To cap off the dull proceedings, we're offered a climax that includes an IRS bust, a dance-floor death, a foiled diva and Princess Grace. While the era is presented as a time of equality, with class and social distinctions leveled, all that's leveled here is the idea of compelling drama. The cartooniest element is played by Ellen Albertini Dow, "The Wedding Singer"'s rapping granny, who has a major role as a profane, drug-addled senior denizen.

--Ray Pride

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