54 (film)

54 is a 1998 American drama film written and directed by Mark Christopher. Starring Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell, and Mike Myers, the film focuses on the rise and fall of Studio 54, a famous nightclub in New York City during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Prior to its release in the United States on August 28, 1998, by Miramax Films, the film was extensively reshot and recut; it ultimately opened to poor critical reaction and box office. In 2008, a bootleg version of the director's cut was screened at Outfest, leading to interest for its release. In 2015, Christopher and Miramax premiered a new edit of the film at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, with 45 minutes of original material restored and 30 minutes of studio re-shoots removed.

Theatrical version
In the summer of 1979, 19-year-old Irish-American filling station attendant Shane O'Shea lives in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his widowed, conservative father Harlan and two younger sisters Grace and Kelly. Weary of his working-class existence, Shane longs for a more glamorous life across the river in New York City's Manhattan, so one night, he persuades his two friends into accompanying him to Studio 54, a disco nightclub. When he is chosen to enter upon arrival by the club's co-owner Steve Rubell, he is exposed to the flashy, hedonistic world of 54, with unbridled alcohol, drugs, and open sex. Against his father's wishes, he returns to 54 the next night and Steve hires him as a busboy. After fighting with Harlan over his new job, he leaves Jersey City and moves in with fellow busboy Greg Randazzo and his coat-check girl wife Anita, an aspiring singer, in Manhattan.

After a week bussing tables, Shane is promoted to bartender following a one-night stand with club regular Billie Auster, upsetting Greg, who feels that he did not get the job because he would not let Steve perform oral sex on him. As Shane's popularity skyrockets, he mingles with the city's upper-class, poses for a beefcake photo shoot in Interview magazine, consumes drugs, and has sexual intercourse with multiple women. After a while, he begins to feel used because he wants to be taken seriously and valued for more than just his good looks and sex appeal.

Shane's sudden rise in popularity also damages his relationships with his friends and family, especially during the Christmas holidays. On Christmas Eve, Greg, who now moonlights as a drug dealer for extra money, criticizes him of displaying a conceited attitude and accuses him of attempting to sleep with and have sexual intercourse with Anita after witnessing him attempting to begin a romantic relationship with her earlier at their apartment. Harlan, whom Shane has not seen or spoken to in several months, rejects him when he returns home for a visit on Christmas Day because a female friend of the family who got into 54 one night informed him that she saw Shane doing drugs there. However, he does experience some brief happiness during the holidays when he commences a short-lived romance with his celebrity crush (and fellow New Jerseyan) Julie Black, a soap opera starlet determined to succeed in the film industry.

On New Year's Eve 1979, Shane's stardom, his relationship with Julie, and 54's life all abruptly end. He disgustedly rejects Julie after discovering her with Roland Sachs, an agent she plans to sleep with to advance her career. After elderly 54 regular Mona (aka Disco Dottie), a feisty, foul-mouthed, drug-using grandmother, dies of a cocaine overdose during Anita's debut performance, Steve asks a grief-stricken Shane to ignore the incident and continue working. Shane angrily refuses and gets into a near-physical altercation with Steve, who then fires him and orders his bouncers to expel him from the club. Simultaneously, the FBI raids 54 and arrests Steve, as he has been skimming money from the club's nightly take. As Shane leaves 54 in disgrace, Julie passes by him in a limousine, and following a brief heart-to-heart, they part ways but agree to remain friends.

Ultimately, Steve receives an 18-month prison sentence for tax evasion, and 54 consequently closes; upon release, he is forced to sell 54 but remains associated with the club as a consultant under the new management. During that time, Shane communicates regularly with Julie, who moves to Hollywood and lands a bit part in a film, but he, Anita and Greg drift apart. Anita releases a moderately successful album with Casablanca Records and Greg obtains a construction job after serving six months of probation for dealing drugs. Shane works nights managing a restaurant in Greenwich Village and takes business classes at NYU during the daylight hours; he also improves his relationships with his father and sisters by visiting them weekly. The trio reunite at the newly reopened 54 upon Steve's release, for a one-night welcome-back party hosted by him for all of his old friends and employees. Eventually, 54 closes permanently in 1986, and Steve dies of AIDS in 1989 at age 45.

Director's cut additions
The director's cut opens with a new narration of the film's original opening as Shane is seen leaving 54 after being thrown out on New Year's Eve. Shane's narration from the theatrical version is omitted.

In a moment of confusion, an openly bisexual Shane kisses Greg in the VIP room on Christmas Eve, before then having sexual intercourse with Anita in the ladies' room after she and Greg have an altercation. Anita, noticing Steve watching them, hits Shane in the stomach and runs out of the ladies' room in shame.

When Shane discovers that he is running low on cash due to his numerous debts, Greg introduces him to his covert drug-dealing operation. Shane steals some of Steve's skimmed cash as capital and repays his debts on New Year's Eve.

Greg eventually agrees to let Steve perform oral sex on him for the bartender job, but Steve disagrees, admitting that he would rather watch Greg and Anita have sex instead, as he did on Christmas Eve. Greg goes to the cloakroom to confront Anita and encounters her hugging Shane, after which the two have a fistfight. Shane freebases cocaine to ease his emotional pain.

After Greg and Anita reconcile following her interrupted debut performance, Anita leaves with Billie for a photo op. Shane discovers G-men raiding Steve's office and retreats upstairs to warn Greg, but Greg ignores him. Greg then runs to retrieve his belongings from his locker when he sees Shane being thrown out of the club but discovers that a G-man has already beat him to it and has found his drugs.

After Shane is expelled from 54, he witnesses Greg running up behind him. Shane offers him his garbage bag cloak to keep him clothed, and Greg begrudgingly accepts. Anita runs up to them afterwards in a lavish fur coat and cloaks Greg in it with her as they both depart. Greg calls for Shane to accompany them, just as Julie pulls up Shane alongside in her limousine and offers him a ride. Shane declines Julie's offer and instead departs with Greg and Anita, with the trio staying together as a family instead of drifting apart.

Production
Based on two short films Mark Christopher made, Miramax Films persuaded Christopher to direct the full-length feature about Studio 54. He had spent five years researching the club and the time period while working on a screenplay. Miramax purchased a partial screenplay in 1995 and developed the script with the filmmaker for over a year.

Christopher shot the film in Toronto over two months in the fall of 1997. However, he and studio head Harvey Weinstein differed on their respective visions of the film. Christopher intended for the film to capture Studio 54's notoriety as "the epicenter of the gay cultural explosion in New York City" and wanted the story to be told from the perspective of "Shane, a kid from New Jersey who sleeps his way to the top of the 54 pecking order, which means that he becomes one of the shirtless bartenders for which the club was notorious, golden boys who flexed and preened for the clientele of both sexes, occasionally deigning to grant sexual favors in return for money and drugs". Conversely, Weinstein wanted a more commercial film akin to Saturday Night Fever (1977), with its gay storyline removed.

Weinstein screen tested Christopher's cut of the film on Long Island in early 1998. Audiences at this screening reacted negatively to the lead character's bisexuality, particularly to a scene where Shane and Greg kiss, as well as the happy ending for both characters and Anita. Miramax subsequently requested the film remove any suggestions of bisexuality. The postproduction process was troubled, with Weinstein hiring a second writing team to flesh out new scenes that play up a romance between Shane and Julie. Christopher was not allowed in the editing room, and though he agreed to shoot the new scenes after initial resistance, he did not get to see the final cut.

Reception and legacy
54 opened at number four on its opening weekend (August 28–30, 1998) with $6.6 million, behind Blade, There's Something About Mary, and Saving Private Ryan.

Studio cut
The studio cut of the film received almost universally poor reviews and was a commercial disappointment, grossing $16.8 million on an estimated budget of $13 million. Mike Myers, in his first serious dramatic role, garnered some of the film's only positive word-of-mouth. The role was Myers' only foray into drama until Inglourious Basterds (released in 2009) and Bohemian Rhapsody and Terminal (both released in 2018).

Though some critics noted Christopher manages to "[re-create] the club's playfully subversive physical details: the glitter confetti and giant silver man-in-the-moon cokehead mobile, the VIP room hidden in the dank basement", many were particularly disappointed with the film's fictional characters and storyline, believing that Studio 54's notorious, real-life past should have been explored with better detail and more realism.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 15% based on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Robbed of its integral LGBTQ themes, 54 is a compromised and disjointed glance at the glory days of disco." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 33 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.

The film was nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Actor for Ryan Phillippe and Worst Supporting Actress for Ellen Albertini Dow. Neve Campbell was nominated for Worst Supporting Actress (also for Wild Things) at the 1998 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards.

Director's cut
In the years after the theatrical cut's release, a bootleg VHS version of the two-hour-long rough cut began circulating. Strong word of mouth and support led to New York LGBTQ film festival Outfest screening the rough cut to a sold-out crowd in 2008. Christopher and his co-producer Jonathan King had been lobbying Miramax for years to allow them to remaster the director's cut for DVD. In 2014, the filmmakers received the greenlight to make 54: The Director's Cut from Zanne Devine, Miramax's then-VP of production. They completed the film in time for a screening in the Panorama section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015. The 105 minute-long cut included 44 minutes of restored footage, with all but a few seconds of the studio-dictated re-shot footage jettisoned.

The director's cut has received a much more positive critical response,  and the film has a huge cult following among the LGBT community. Of 54: The Director's Cut, critic Louis Jordan wrote, "Driven by character and atmosphere rather than soapy plot, Christopher's film is permeated by a melancholy that adds depth to the ecstatic party scenes. Mike Myers nails the pathos and charm behind Rubell's luded-out lechery, while Phillippe's measured performance, finally given space to breathe, is vulnerable, amoral, and sexy. There are no easy heroes or villains in this 54, only people looking for something they'll likely never find."

Home media
A 2012 Blu-ray release features several additional and alternate scenes that were not included in the theatrical release. This extended cut runs 100 minutes, eight minutes of which are not in the studio's 92-minute release. Miramax and Lionsgate Home Entertainment released 54: The Director's Cut in digital HD on streaming video providers on June 2, 2015. A Blu-ray version of this cut was released in 2016.