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| 54 (1998) - R
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ReviewScore: 28 out of 100
SBD Star Rating:
by Lew Irwin
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54, the movie about the disco mecca of the '70s, is not likely to bring back the movie musical, judging from the comments of most film critics today (Friday). Peter Howell, the Toronto Star critic calls it "a dismal movie [that] manages to make sex, drugs and disco look boring. ... Rarely does the cinema make something smaller than life. But 54 does just that, making the 1970s New York hot spot seem about as exciting as a motel bar." Steve Murray in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes similarly, "The movie is as meek as Studio 54 was outrageous." But Murray also speculates about what might have been, saying, "Reportedly, the film was the victim of tampering and reshoots, and it shows." Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan also laments, "Decadence has rarely looked so pathetic, lethargic and dispiriting as it does in this listless film," Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News revives an expression of the late '70s when he remarks, The people who made 54 surely didn't intend for the movie to prove the old adage that disco sucks. But they prove it nevertheless." But Rod Dreher in the New York Post, while also criticizing the movie for not showing why the disco scene was so attractive in the '70s, nevertheless adds: ^"54 is far from a disaster, though, and it's more fun (if less smart) than Whit Stillman's similarly themed The Last Days of Disco." But Dave Kehr in the New York Daily News insists it's not fun enough. "Where you'd like to sense yourself at the vortex of a hallucinogenic Busby Berkeley production number," he writes, "54 leaves you feeling stranded in a dingy high-school gym."
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