Purely Joyful Movie!

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Okay, most people wouldn't admit it, but I will. I only watched this movie for the graphic sex and nudity. Based on the trailer, I was expecting a giant orgy, filled with drugs and dance music, but to my surprise, 54 actually turned out to be a docudrama about Club 54, as seen through the eyes of a young waiter/bar tender/dancer. The film features the shady practices of the owner, the drug trade inside, the celebrity guests, and of course the eccentric regulars, in what turns out to be one hell of an entertaining film (...and the sex and nudity don't hurt either). Ryan Phillippe stars in a role that today I could never see him taking, but back in his younger days, he really excelled in. The way he was able to demonstrate how the exposure to a place like that can change a person, was truly remarkable. He literally went from nothing to a face that was known all over the city, simply because he was a waiter at 54. It went to his head and changed the whole dynamic of his life and relationship with his family. For as good as he was though, Mike Myers was the real star of the film, portraying famed owner Steve Rubell. Rubell's life was just one big party and he never slowed down or cared about what he was doing or saying publicly, and we all know how that turned out in the long run. Myers is one of those actors who is out of this world when he's cast in the right role, and terrible when he's not, but much as the case with Austin Powers, this role fit him like a glove. On the surface, 54 is a wild, raunchy film that is going to offend a lot of people, I don't suggest watching it with your grandparents. It does however, tell a very relevant and historically accurate story of the drug and youth culture of the mid-late 1970s in the big cities. 54 is sexy, entertaining, and informative, a mix that you don't often see on the big screen.

a young man in a crazy universe. fun, dramas, Mike Meyers in a seductive performance, Ryan Philippe in a nice role. and a legendary club who represents only the pretext for recreate the spirit of a period. far to be a great film, it is a decent one. and that is the only important thing- to explore the forms of a form of hedonism, free circle with its great problems, the need to escape and the surrogate of happiness. 54 has not the ambition to be a documentary. only a show about myths and bitter taste of success, hypocrisy and ambition. and it does a good job, giving few crumbs from an illusory universe. a film about forms of seduction who seduce itself. that could be all.

The studio executives who ruined the first release version of this film in 1998 have a lot to answer for, but the director has had the last word and proved he was right all along, with the new Director's Cut (which I saw at the Sydney Film Festival tonight), which is an ENTIRELY different and improved experience. From now on, I don't think there should be any reason for anyone to watch the original release version again, the improvement is that dramatic. The one aspect that may irritate some viewers is that a few of the 'new' scenes have slightly lower image & sound quality than the rest of the film, as they obviously weren't able to find perfect quality footage for every restored scene, and the editing between some scenes doesn't always feel entirely smooth. And some weaknesses in the film still remain - such as Ryan Philippe, who is a bit limp despite being more than pretty enough for the role. But in so many other ways this is a far far better film, taking a film I'd only have rated maybe a 4 in the past, to at least a 7 now. About 40% of the film feels entirely changed, all for the better. There's a lot more life to the nights at the club, now that they've been able to put back the sex & drugs the studio removed (no movie about 1980-era disco makes any sense once you remove them). The parties are wild and bisexual and very disco. And the whole direction of the drama has been altered, now that the dull studio-imposed romance with Neve Campbell has been removed. Neve is still there in a small role, but the film now focuses on Ryan's love triangle with Salma Hayek & Breckin Meyer instead, which is far more interesting. Everyone who worked on the film should be happy with the Director's Cut, which proves they were making something pretty decent (until the studio stuffed it up).

Despite all the music, dancing, flashy lights, and glitter, 54 wanders around blind deaf and dumb, making no progress and ends up amounting to nothing. What could be more frustrating than being asked to watch two hundred people party like it's 1999, and not getting a chance to be a part of it. The film is dull. It is set up a little like Boogie Nights (which itself was set up like Goodfellas) meaning of course that the story has a first person perspective, narration included with a blow by blow description of names places and faces, and "what a good time it was" or something like that. Too bad the narrator is a piece of cardboard, as is everyone else in the movie. Neve Campbell is the only one who feels human in her performance, yet she is given practically no screen time. If director Mark Christopher had bothered to spend as much time on character as he did on useless details like figuring out what color each light source should be, 54 may have amounted to something. It doesn't. Disco may be dead, but not half as much as this is.