Fellman's Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

A Night at the Roxbury is a 1998 comedy starring Wil Ferrell and Chris Kattan that expands on their popular sketches from Saturday Night Live starring the Butabi brothers, Doug and Steve, a pair of club hopping LA wannabes that constantly get rejected by women while loud techno music plays in the background. It’s a cheesy movie, and it’s pretty straightforward, but I’ve always liked it. It’s not something that you’re supposed to think too hard about. It’s like the Three Stooges. You’re not supposed to over-analyze it. It’s a simple joke. Don’t try to make it more than it is, and it’ll stay funny. If you try to over-complicate it, it loses its simple charm.  

What’s it about? The movie starts like the sketches on the show do, with the guys hopping from club to club and getting rejected over and over by numerous women until they eventually end up at the Roxbury and are refused entrance. After waiting in line for many hours, the club closes right as they get to the front of the line and they are forced to go home. The next day, their father tells them to go to work at his fake plant store, where Steve is usually responsible, while Doug spends most of his time goofing off and not doing what he’s told by their father. After going to the beach, they decide that they’re going to get into the Roxbury, but when they get home, Doug gets into an argument with their father about how much they go clubbing and takes away their car and their cell phones. Not wanting them to go out without phones, their mom gives them gigantic mobile phones and allows them to use the store’s delivery van. They go to the Roxbury and try to bribe their way in, but have very little money in their pockets, so they go out to find an ATM, but because they keep slamming their brakes, they rear-ended by Richard Greico who then uses his celebrity status to get them into the club. While in the Roxbury, they meet the owner, Benny Zadir and pitch him the idea of an “inside-out” nightclub, where the outside looks like the inside and the inside looks like the outside. But Zadir thinks it’s too loud and wants to set up a meeting for later. While they’re talking to Zadir, two women, Cambi and Vivica, see them and assume they must be rich, so they make a plan to seduce them. While traveling in the limo to Zadir’s house after they leave the club, Zadir tells them his driver and bodygaurd, Dooey, can’t hear them with the separator window up, and the Butabi brothers begin insulting Dooey’s mother and sister for cheap laughs from Zadir and the two ladies. They then tell everybody about huffing the gas that comes out of a can of “fluffy whip” right before it starts to come out, and Dooey is forced to go all over town to find it until 4 in the morning. When they get to Zadir’s house, they find themselves alone with the girls in separate rooms and awkwardly have sex with the girls who find out it’s each of the guy’s first times. The next day when the brothers go to have their meeting with Zadir, Dooey is standing in the doorway, waiting for them. He tells them that Zadir was drunk out of his mind when in reality, Zadir is trying to find the brothers, but doesn’t have their contact information. The brothers then go to pick up Cambi and Vivica in the store’s delivery van and the women realize they aren’t rich and quickly dump them, breaking the boy’s hearts. Doug blames Steve for everything and moves out of their shared bedroom and into the guest house while Steve is forced into an engagement with the daughter of the neighbor’s lamp store, Emily. The wedding is held in the backyard of the Butabi’s house but is interrupted by Doug when he comes out of the guest house, holding a boombox above his head, playing Haddaway’s “What is Love”. He convinces Steve to break off the wedding and their friend and personal trainer Craig confesses his love for Emily and takes Steve’s place. The next day the brothers are out on the town when they pass by a club that looks like their inside-out nightclub idea that they pitched to Zadir. They go to the bouncer and ask to go inside and are surprised when he says that they are on the list. They go in the club and find out that Zadir created the club and made them half owners. 

What’s good? It’s taken pretty much right from the sketches of SNL. They usually can’t do that. Take the good bits and expand upon it. But it worked this time. It’s a good storyline and the dialogue between the characters and funny. Not to mention a lot of catchlines and quotables come out of the movie at various parts. 

What’s bad? I mean, it’s not Shakespeare. It’s not going to win awards or anything. You kind of have to take it for what it is. But that’s the fun of it. It’s an hour and a half of cheesy comedy. Let it be cheesy. There’s nothing wrong with that.  

The acting? Sometimes acting is good, and sometimes acting is bad, and sometimes acting is acting. This is one of those times when nobody’s really going above or below 50% on the “meh” meter… 

The effects? There’s no effects in this movie. Literally. There’s some alternate camera angles during the dance scene. But that’s as close to effects as you’re going to get. 

SNL movies usually aren’t funny. It’s hard to take a five-minute sketch and turn it into an hour and a half movie. God knows they’ve tried it enough times. We can all remember “Wayne’s World” and for some reason “Wayne’s World 2”.  

Pushing the girl back and forth. That’s a funny bit. When a girl gets trapped in between them and they literally push her back and forth until she screams and runs away. You’d probably get arrested for something like that today. Back in 1998 it was pretty funny. 

The Emelio story. The Emelio Estevez story is like, their go-to pick up line. They tell it over and over again like it’s supposed to impress girls. I don’t even know if Emelio Estevez was all that big of a celebrity in 1998. I don’t think that story would really impress anybody that much. 

Just asks if they want to make out. He tells the Emelio story and without missing a beat, asks if they want to make out while she’s not even looking at him. That’s confidence, right there… 

4 months of work? What exactly were they working on? Was it some sort of music video? Was it some sort of routine? Were they just driving around and doing that? Where were they sitting there, flicking their hands back and forth at each other for God knows how many hours on end? 

Doug just throws the plants. Doug just throws the plants into the van while Steve carries them gently like they’re real plants. In Doug’s defense, they’re made of silk, so it’s not like they’re going to die or anything. 

He knows the credit check number. Doug knows the credit check number by heart and he calls it up automatically and asks for the specific lady to check the card because that’s the only way he flirts with an actual woman is over the phone with someone he can’t even see. 

They stop in the middle of sentences to hit on women. They’ll stop in the middle of sentences to go hit on women that they walk past and then resume talking right back where they were as if they were expecting to get shot down because they do, every single time. 

Greico just doesn’t want to get sued. Greico takes them over to the Roxbury and gets them in and sits down with them for all of 2 minutes before he gets up and leaves because he just doesn’t want to get sued for smashing into their car.  

Zadir is always aking “did you just grab my ass?”. One of the best jokes of the movie is Zadir asking everybody “did you just grab my ass?”. I don’t know why I find that so funny. He’s just so obsessed with it. It’s like a grandpa with a dirty joke.  

The look on Greico’s face. The look on Greico’s face when Doug asks him if Johnny Depp is meeting him there is priceless. Like they still hang out or something because they were on a show together 20 years ago.  

Doug is essentially spasming. Chris Kattan had to practice dancing like that, because it looks awfully difficult to move like that. And violent. And painful… 

42 seconds later. It only took both of them 42 seconds to have sex with either of those women. Even for their first time, that’s pretty quick… 

Physical impossibility. One of my favorite lines in the the entire movie is when Zadir asks Dooey if he just grabbed his ass from across the room and Dooey says “Sir, from where I’m standing, that’s a physical impossibility…” 

Why is she going through all of his stuff? Why is Emily suddenly going through all of Steve’s stuff? It’s like she’s cleaning out all of his personal belongings and telling him what he can and can’t keep. No wonder he wanted her to eat a can of botulism. 

Craig is having fun. Craig certainly seems to be having fun with Doug when he’s out clubbing with him. He’s dancing up a storm at the table, even though he’s by himself and sitting down. 

Steve hits on the bridesmaid. Steve is so used to hitting on women wherever he goes that he just hits on one of the bridesmaids as he’s standing as the groom in his own wedding. That is some of the best writing ever. 

Richard Greico, you see right through me. In one of the most quotable lines ever, Richard Greico is explaining to the Butabi’s father why he’s so hard on Doug and not on Steve and their father tells Greico how he’s shown him the truth. 

They’re surprised they’re on the list. Doug and Steve are so surprised to be on the list when they get to the inside-out nightclub because they’re not used to being on the list. So when they get let inside, they don’t know what to do. And then Zadir tells them that he cut them in, they start acting like they know how to be club owners and start pushing people around, unknowingly. 

So, yeah. Go and see A Night at the Roxbury. It’s not Oscar worthy. It’s not Star Wars level production value. But it’s good for a laugh. And isn’t that what we’re all looking for? And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…