A Night at the Roxbury
This comedy extends and embellishes characters introduced on Saturday Night Live by regulars Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan in their sketch series of two head-bobbing losers who go on the town, looking for action, when they hear the What Is Love? disco tune. Looking cool, brothers Steve (Ferrell) and Doug Butabi (Kattan) always fail to pick up women in their hapless nightclub jaunts. In Beverly Hills, they work at a fake-flower store run by their father (Dan Hedaya). They are always denied entrance to the Roxbury, a leading discotheque, but an auto accident with Richard Grieco (portraying himself) gives them a foot in the door. Inside, they meet the club's owner (an uncredited Chazz Palminteri), and two gold-diggers (Elisa Donovan, Gigi Rice) believe they are wealthy businessmen. Steve finds his father shoving him into marriage with next-door neighbor Emily (Molly Shannon), but Doug keeps this from happening. Fortune smiles, and the Butabi brothers become the co-owners of a new nightclub. The real-life Roxbury on the Sunset Strip (once the location of the Imperial Gardens and the Players Club) was converted into a Japanese restaurant by the time this film was released. more..
Director: John Fortenberry
Starring: Chris Kattan, Will Ferrell, Loni Anderson, Dan Hedaya, Dwayne Hickman
I will admit that this TV skit stretched out to a filament-thin 83 minutes is idiotic, but I mean that in a good way.
Kattan and Ferrell do their best to fill out the shallow Butabis.
The lame-o aspects of the whole campy setup are still lame-o.
A lot like the brothers themselves: undeniably pathetic but strangely lovable. Still, do you really want to spend an hour and a half with them in a dark room?
Steve and Doug's story just isn't funny, and it would take far better writing than Kattan, Ferrell and Steve Koren can muster to make it less than an ordeal.
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