A One Mann’s Movies review of “Saturday Night” (2025).
“Saturday Night Live” is, of course, an American institution having run from October 11th 1975 to the present date. The anarchic show has launched the careers of countless comedy stars over the years. Here we return to that night in 1975 for the first ever SNL to see how near the show was to never getting aired at all.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Saturday Night” Plot Summary:
Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is the showrunner for a new NBC comedy show set to go out live for the first time on October 11th 1975. He has a vision… but can’t easily describe it. But he knows it involves putting some of the young up-and-coming new-age comedians together with a set of raucous and/or politically sensitive skits, sorry, sketches, and seeing what happens.
With 90 minutes to showtime, things are not going well.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC web site: “Very strong language, strong sex references, drug misuse, nudity”.)
Talent:
Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons.
Directed by: Jason Reitman.
Written by: Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman.
Running Time: 1h 49m.
“Saturday Night” Summary:
Positives:
- Effectively generates the feeling of panic in you of a slow-motion-car crash.
- Many of the lookalikes are very good
- Gabriel LaBelle and Nicholas Braun are both excellent in their respective roles.
Negatives:
- I’m afraid I found most of the material only amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny.
Review of “Saturday Night”:
Making a cocktail of flammable materials, then lighting the match.
There’s a word for this film and it is “volatile”. The whole project stinks of a lack of planning that sets my organisational teeth on edge. As, no doubt, is the film’s intention! It doesn’t help that all of the cast are a bunch of egotistical, often drug-fuelled nut jobs. Some of the more combustible constituents – notably Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) and John Belushi (Matt Wood) – are in open warfare with each other. There’s a set that’s not prepared yet; a sound system that goes down; a lighting director that storms off in a huff; and a planned 90-minute show that currently runs to over 3 hours. How Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) stayed sane is a miracle. All of this makes for an entertaining, almost-real-time, drama.
Some great performances.
Many of the lookalikes were great. Cory Michael Smith’s Chevy Chase and Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Ackroyd were particularly good. Some, I didn’t realise who they were supposed to be. For example I only realised today that Nicholas Podany’s character was Billy Crystal. He was indeed cut from the first SNL. As shown in the film, he had 4 minutes of material for a 2 minute slot and nothing else prepared. (Curiously, given that this programme was such an historical event, no copies of the script remained: except for the one that Crystal had kept!)
But it was a couple of performances that stood out for me.
A couple of the performances really stood out for me.
First up was Gabriel LaBelle – ‘Steven Spielberg’ of course in “The Fabelmans” – who shines as Lorne Michaels. The sense of purpose, frustration, fear, near-madness and elation are all etched on his face through different phases of the film.
The other player that shone was Nicholas Braun, who of course was the hapless Greg in the wonderful “Succession”. Braun carries not one but TWO central performances in the film and does them so well it needed the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man to point out to me that a) it was “Greg” and b) that he was actually playing both roles. Both are hilarious recreations: firstly, there’s legendary alternative comedian Andy Kaufman, who generates some of the best laughs in the film. Then, there’s legendary Muppet-man Jim Henson. His Henson scenes in particular are hilarious, with the great man earnestly wandering around still looking for his script with only minutes to go to broadcast. (I really wonder what that first Muppet segment was like – there is a good video here charting the stormy relationship between Henson and SNL that is worth a watch.)
But is it funny?
I must admit to not being a great fan of SNL. Yes, some of their sketches I see are funny. But I think, in general, this sort of comedy sometimes struggles to cross the Atlantic, at least from my perspective. (I’m sure the same is true for UK comedies crossing the Atlantic… US readers, have no doubt, most of us thing “Mrs Brown’s Boys” is terrible too!)
So, with “Saturday Night”, I smiled a few times. I even laughed out loud once or twice. But it didn’t really pass my six-laughs-test for a comedy.
Summary Thoughts on “Saturday Night”
As a comedy, I didn’t find it hilariously funny. As a drama, I didn’t find it dramatically dramatic. It was just “OK” for me. But this is a film that I think will get views ranging from 2*s to 5*s from different folks, depending on where your humour-meter (or, in this case, humor-meter) sits.
“Saturday Night” is on general release in the UK on January 31st.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Saturday Night”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i15aF–RBoI.
Subscribe
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to One Mann’s Movies to receive future reviews by email right here. No salesman will call!
