A Night at the Roxbury
USA 1998
Reviewed by Danny Leigh
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Beverly Hills. Ardent clubbers Steve and Doug Butabi are refused entry to exclusive LA nightclub, the Roxbury. Returning home, Steve is given a ticket by a policewoman with whom he immediately falls in love. Steve and Doug spend the following day working at their father's shop, where Doug sweet-talks a female credit-control telephonist and Steve is pursued by neighbour Emily. That night, the brothers unsuccesfully attempt to bribe their way into the Roxbury. En route home, television star Richard Grieco scrapes their car's bumper; worried about litigation, he gets the Butabis into the club.
Inside, they share a table with the owner Mr Zadir, and are mistaken for businessmen by two women with whom they subsequently lose their virginity. In the morning, they visit Zadir's offices to tell him their idea for a new club, but are ejected by his chauffeur. Their conquests of the previous night abandon them. Distraught, the brothers argue; Doug moves out of the room he shares with Steve and into the family's guest house.
Emily and Steve become engaged. At the wedding, Doug appears brandishing a tape recorder playing his and Steve's favourite club anthem. Steve leaves Emily; the brothers track down Zadir, who becomes their business partner. At the opening of their own club, Steve and Doug spend the evening with their new girlfriends: the policewoman and the telephonist.
Review
Despite the fitful nature of the results, a job on the venerable US sketch show Saturday Night Live has long been a golden tickets for comics seeking to transfer their talents to cinema. In the tradition of the first SNL spin-off, The Blues Brothers, such vehicle are often little more than an extended riff based around characters already established on the small screen. A Night at the Roxbury is simply the latest variation on the theme. Despite some ferocious competition, it may also be the most profoundly unfunny.
When the formula works, as it did with Penelope Spheeris' Wayne's World (with its pair of dim-witted losers embroiled in an insular music subculture), the secret lies in the instant recognisability of the protagonists. Even for a British audience denied the opportunity of seeing the characters in their original milieu, Wayne and Garth were given enough personality for the humour to resonate. Doug and Steve Butabi, on the other hand, have no believable existence outside this tired procession of set-ups and punchlines. Presumably we are supposed to empathise with their role as perennial outsiders, forever striving to make it beyond the Roxbury's velvet rope. Yet it is difficult to identify with the only defining traits of those pampered imbeciles: vanity and ignorance. Director John Fortenberry, whose unwillingness to venture beyond the most prosaic storytelling devices betrays his background in television comedy and exacerbates Roxbury's air of an over-extended skit, simply casts us adrift in a sea of unfamiliar catchphrases and cultural references. The intertextuality of casting Richard Grieco, leading man o f the US series 21 Jump Street, as himself will surely baffle anyone lacking a through knowledge of US television's lower depths.
Moreover just as it fails to find an equilibrium between mocking Butabis' naivety and deifying their innocence, Roxbury cannot decide whether to sneer at or fetishise its clubland locale. On the one hand, it is exclusively populated by shallow and mendacious airheads; on the other, the only visible alternative (marriage) is proposed to be more status-driven and soul-destroying.
Indeed, if there's one group of people Fortenberry appears to hate more than clubbers, it is women. Amid the countless scenes in which the Butabis harass innumerable mini-skirted extras, every female character is a gold-digger or a walking castration complex. The only exceptions, tellingly enough, are the boys' nameless dream dates - referred to throughout as 'Hottie Cop' and 'Credit Vixen' - and their own mother. In fact, with their admiring glances at the mother's surgically enhanced cleavage, their repressed hatred of their overbearing father and terror when confronted with aggressive female sexuality, the boys end up- looking persistently Oedipal. Such inadvertent kinkiness may be intriguing, but it comes at the expense of genuine comedy.
Credits
- Producers
- Lorne Michaels
- Amy Heckerling
- Screenplay
- Steve Koren
- Will Ferrell
- Chris Kattan
- Director of Photography
- Francis Kenny
- Editor
- Jay Kamen
- Production Designer
- Steven Jordan
- Music
- David Kitay
- ©Paramount Pictures Corporation
- Production Companies
- Paramount Pictures presents in association with SNL Studios a Lorne Michaels and Amy Heckerling production
- Executive Producer
- Robert K. Weiss
- Co-producers
- Marie Cantin
- Steve Koren
- Associate Producer
- Erin Fraser
- Production Office Co-ordinator
- Christine Haas
- Unit Production Manager
- Marie Cantin
- Location Managers
- Mike Fantasia
- Eric Klosterman
- Assistant Directors
- J. Stephen Buck
- Susan Fiore
- Mark S. Constance
- Script Supervisor
- Esther Vivante
- Casting
- Jeff Greenberg
- Supervisor:
- Cathy Reinking
- Voice:
- Voices International
- Camera Operators
- Michael Negrin
- Additional:
- Louis Barlia
- Computer Graphic Imagery
- Banned From The Ranch Entertainment
- Computer Graphics Producer:
- Casey Cannon
- On-set Supervisor:
- Glenn Cannon
- CGI Department Co-ordinator:
- Gail Wise
- Video Editor:
- Lauryl Duplechan
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Kam Cooney
- Technician:
- Mark Lilienthal
- Art Director
- Carl Stensel
- Set Decorator
- John Philpotts
- Illustrator
- Timothy L. Braniff
- Costume Designer
- Mona May
- Costume Supervisor
- Lucinda Campbell
- Make-up Supervisor
- Alan 'Doc' Friedman
- Supervising Hairstylist
- Melissa Yonkey
- Main Title Design
- Adam Perri
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title
- Orchestra Conductor
- David Kitay
Orchestrations- Pete Anthony
- Xandy Janko
- Music Supervisor
- Elliot Lurie
- Music Editor
- Terry Wilson
- Music Recordist/Mixer
- Tim Boyle
- Soundtrack
- "What is Love" by Dee Dee Halligan, Junior Torello, performed by Haddaway; "Pop Muzik" by Robin Scott, performed by 3rd Party; "Where Do You Go" by Franz Reuther, Bischof-Fallentein, performed by No Mercy; "That Old Black Magic" by Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, performed by The Chuck Cahn Orchestra featuring Erica Lively; "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" by Elliot Lurie, performed by The Chuck Cahn Orchestra featuring Erica Lively; "Where Everybody Knows Your Name (theme from "Cheers")" by Gary Portnoy, Judy Hart Angelo; "Bamboogie" by Harry Wayne Casey, Richard Finch, concept & keys by Andrew Livingstone, performed by Bamboo, contains sample from "Get Down Tonight" performed by K.C. & the Sunshine Band; "Beautiful Life" by John Ballard, Jonas Berrggren, performed by Ace of Base; "Stayin' Alive" by Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Maurice Gibb, performed by Bee Gees; "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart, Carmine Appice, performed by N-Trance, Rod Stewart; "Make That Money" by Robert Clivilles, Manuela Kamosi, performed by Robi Rob's Club World; "Be My Lover" by Gerd Saraf, Donald McCray, Melanie Thornton, Ullrich Brenner-Aheirmer, performed by La Bouche; "Everybody Come Around", "Energy Bar" by/performed by V. Renn; "Disco Inferno" by Leroy Green, Ron Kersey, performed by Cyndi Lauper; "Lifting Me Higher" by/performed by Ray Dean; "Buttons and Bows" by Jay Livingston, Ray Evans, performed by Bruno Bertone Orchestra; "Nightmare" by Alberto Bertapelle, performed by Brainbug; "Thanks for the Memory" by Leo Robin, Ralph Rainger, performed by Bruno Bertone Orchestra; "He Ain't Heavy...He's My Brother" by Bob Russell, Bobby Scott, performed by The Hollies; "This Is Your Night" by Christian Beermann, Frank Beermann, Marie-Claire Cremers, Gilbert Montagne, performed by Amber; "Stella by Starlight" by Ned Washington, Victor Young; "Your Touch" by
Maureen Bailey, William Bryant II, performed by Karolyn Gandy, Kimbra Westevelt; "Your Everything I Want" by/performed by Sandell & Watson; "Everybody Hurts" by Michael Stipe, Michael Mills, Peter Buck, William Berry, performed by R.E.M.; "Careless Whisper" by George Michael, Andrew Ridgeley, performed by Tamala; "Cocktails for Two" by Arthur Johnston, Sam Coslow; "A Little Bit of Ecstasy" by Glenn Gutierrez, performed by Jocelyn Enriquez; "Wedding March" by Richard Wagner; "Insomnia" by Rollo Armstrong, Ayalah Bentovim, Max Fraser, performed by Faithless; "Secret Garden" by/performed by Bruce Springsteen - Choreography
- Mary Anne Kellogg
- Sound Mixer
- Jim Tanenbaum
- Re-recording Mixers
- Matthew Iadarola
- Gary Gegan
- Don DiGirolamo
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Cameron Frankley
- Supervising Dialogue Editor
- Michael Szakmeister
- Dialogue Editors
- Carin Rogers
- Richard Corwin
- Sound Effects Editors
- Kerry Dean Williams
- Jeff Clark
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Dave McDonald
- Mixers:
- Bob Baron
- David Boulton
- Mel Zelniker
- Supervising Editor:
- Jeff Watts
- Editors:
- Avram Gold
- Victoria Rose Sampson
- Mary Andrews
- Foley
- Artists:
- Sarah Monat
- Robin Harlan
- Recordist:
- Carolyn Sauer
- Mixer:
- Randy K. Singer
- Supervising Editor:
- Christopher Flick
- Editors:
- Thomas Small
- Tammy Fearing
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Pat Romano
- Cast
- Will Ferrell
- Steve Butabi
- Chris Kattan
- Doug Butabi
Dan Hedaya- Kamehl Butabi
- Molly Shannon
- Emily Sanderson
- Richard Grieco
- himself
- Loni Anderson
- Barbara Butabi
- Elisa Donovan
- Cambi
- Gigi Rice
- Vivica
- Lochlyn Munro
- Craig
- Dwayne Hickman
- Fred Sanderson
- Meredith Scott Lynn
- Credit Vixen
- Colin Quinn
- Dooey
- Raquel Gardner
- Hot Girl
- Vivica Paulin
- Paulette Francese
- Porsche girls
- Jennifer Coolidge
- Hottie Cop
- Michael 'Big Mike' Duncan
- Roxbury bouncer
- Trish Ramish
- Roxbury Club girl
- Gina Mari
- Saturday Night Fever girl
- Roy Jenkins
- Kip King
- flower customers
- Mary Anne Kellogg
- aerobics instructor
- Maree Cheatham
- Mabel Sanderson
- Kristin Dalton
- Grieco's lady
- Deborah Krieger
- topless woman
- Betty Bridges-Nicasio
- Zadir receptionist
- Yoshio Be
- Victor Kobayashi
- Japanese men
- Twink Caplan
- crying flower customer
- Eva Mendez
- bridesmaid
- Mark McKinney
- Father Williams
- Chad Bannon
- New Club bouncer
- Jim Wise
- Patrick Ferrell
- Dorian Spencer
- New Club waiters
- Tina Weisinger
- New Club waitress
- [uncredited]
- Chazz Palminteri
- Mr Zadir, nightclub owner
- Certificate
- tbc
- Distributor
- United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby stereo/DTS
- In Colour