The Boston Phoenix
Review from issue: October 1 - 8, 1998

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A Night at the Roxbury

Another Saturday Night Live skit-to-screen comedy: this one isn't as abysmal as The Coneheads or It's Pat, but it's not on par with Wayne's World or The Blues Brothers. Reprising their head-bopping Butabi brothers, SNL-ers Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell spend the entirety of the film trying to get into the Roxbury, LA's chicest night club. Of course the fashion-challenged siblings -- replete with chains and polyester -- think they're the hottest movers and shakers since John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but they're really a pair of delusional dimwits who live at home, can't get laid, and are shunned at every club door. Along the way a woman comes between them (SNL's Molly Shannon in an uproarious bit), they hang out with Richard Grieco, and they get berated by their controlling father (Dan Hedaya looking ripe for a coronary). Although the film occasionally achieves the warm goofiness of The Wedding Singer, its real star is the retro-hip disco soundtrack ("What Is Love"), which sustains the sherds of momentum with a throbbing, rhythmic energy. If only SNL alum Mike Myers had tossed his 54 shtick into this flick, there might have been at least one entertaining cinematic take on club life.

-- Tom Meek
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