54 (1998)

Set in the disco scene of the 1970s, a handsome young kid (Ryan Phillippe) from New Jersey gets seduced by the glitter, freedom and drugs of the New York party scene when he works as a bartender at Studio 54, the place to be seen in New York until it all came crashing down. This is the film that should have been called THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO which was the title of another film which came out a couple of months earlier. The director Mark Christopher (who also wrote the screenplay) uses a fictional group of characters (with the exception of Mike Myers who plays Steve Rubell, the real life owner of Studio 54) who personify the period and Christopher captures the feverish high and lows of the era. It's not without major flaws however. Christopher had his film interfered with by its producers (the Weinsteins, who else?) and had 45 minutes cut from the original print and re-shot 25 minutes of new footage for the release print. The most egregious addition is a voice over by Phillippe which seems superfluous. The authentic soundtracks is almost a greatest disco hits of the 1970s. The large cast includes Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell, Mark Ruffalo, Sela Ward, Heather Matarazzo, Breckin Meyer, Michael York, Lauren Hutton, Thelma Houston and as an 80 year old disco diva, Ellen Albertini Dow.