A Night at the Roxbury

-Paramount (1998)

Summary

Another Saturday Night Live skit makes it to the big time as a movie.

My Thoughts

This isn't the type of film we usually review here at Digital Monkey Box, but I thought I'd write up a review of A Night at the the Roxbury simply because I like it. Granted, a Saturday Night Live skit involving two nameless guys who bob their heads in a humorous manner to "What is Love" by Haddaway isn’t much of a basis for a film. Despite this, A Night at the Roxbury succeeds on a very basic level.

Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan play the Butabi brothers who are both idiots. The duo's entire life is based on and clubbing. When I say idiots, I mean they are dumber than rocks, but in a lovable sort of way. The brothers both still live at home and work at their father's fake plant store. The Butabi brothers aren't losers without dreams, though. Their ambition is to open up their own trendy dance club. They come closer to this goal through a series of coincidental events that involve, of all people, Richard Grieco. Grieco introduces them to a big time club owner who thinks their ideas are great. The drama comes about when the brothers can’t make their business meeting with the club owner because of a sinister and vindictive personal assistant played by Colin Quinn. Will Ferrell's character Steve also faces the challenge that his father wants him to marry the weird and ambitious Emily Sanderson, played by Molly Shannon. Emily’s father owns the lighting store next to the Butabi's plant store. All parties involved, except for the brother's, want a wedding between Steve and Emily to join the businesses and create a plant/lighting store empire. This causes a huge rift between the two brothers that tears their worlds apart.

As you can see this isn’t War and Peace, but it serves as good base for the humor. There are, of course, a bunch of jokes that don't work at all. Also, the fact that both Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell are playing parts that they are way too young for brings A Night at the Roxbury down a bit. If you think you might like this type of film you probably will. If you hate these kinds of comedies then I wouldn't expect anything for you to see here.

The DVD edition is as simple and bare bones as it gets. The picture is average and the Dolby 5.1  mix is pretty decent. I didn't expect much when I popped this into my player and I got what I expected. Since this is probably the best form this film will ever see I really can't hold it against this edition. Who would really want a two disc super extended directors cut of this film anyway?

Extras

There's a film trailer. Yay, a film trailer.

Score

Film: 7.0

Extras: 1.0

Edition: 5.0

-Paul