Time: 109 Minutes
Age Rating: M – Offensive language, nudity, drug use & sexual references
Cast:
Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels
Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster
Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase
Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner
Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd
Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman
Matt Wood as John Belushi
Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris
Kim Matula as Jane Curtin
Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page
Nicholas Braun as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson
Ellen Boscov as Mrs. Kaufman
Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol
Andrew Barth Feldman as Neil Levy
Leander Suleiman as Anne Beatts
Taylor Gray as Al Franken
Mcabe Gregg as Tom Davis
Abraham Hsu as Leo Yoshimura
Corinne Britti as Valri Bromfield
Nicholas Podany as Billy Crystal
Rowan Joseph as Jim Fox
Kirsty Woodward as Audrey Dickman
Kaia Gerber as Jacqueline Carlin
Robert Wuhl as Dave Wilson
Drew Scheid as Bob Pook
Tommy Dewey as Michael O’Donoghue
Catherine Curtin as Joan Carbunkle
Jon Batiste as Billy Preston
Brian Welch as Don Pardo
Jef Holbrook as editor
Willem Dafoe as David Tebet
Paul Rust as Paul Shaffer
Tracy Letts as Herb Sargent
Matthew Rhys as George Carlin
Naomi McPherson as Janis Ian
J. K. Simmons as Milton Berle
Billy Bryk as Carl
Brad Garrett as Borscht Belt comedian
Josh Brener as Alan Zweibel
Director: Jason Reitman

Being up front with this: I don’t watch Saturday Night Live, and what little I’ve seen of it, it really isn’t my thing. So a movie about SNL really didn’t appeal to me on a conceptual level. However, it starred some talented people and it had been receiving some praise, so I thought that I’d check it out. I thought it was fine overall, but I definitely didn’t love it.

Saturday Night’s biggest hurdle is its underwhelming script. Essentially, the movie focuses on Lorne Michaels and the cast, comedians and writers for Saturday Night having to prepare for the first broadcast of the show within 90 minutes. The movie tries to build up tension around whether they can pull it off, but it really doesn’t work. Yes, this movie does have a lot of rapid fire dialogue between characters and people being stressed and repeating how disastrous things are going and how the show could be cancelled. The problem is that everyone watching already knows that everything turns out fine, so it’s never a credible worry. There are certainly movies based on true events where it successfully builds tension despite us already knowing the outcome, and Saturday Night might’ve succeeded in that way if I was invested in what’s going on. The problem is that I just wasn’t. The film tries to frame its team as a bunch of young underdog creatives trying to succeed against all the odds, and it didn’t work that way for me. There’s so much going on here and so many characters to keep track of, so not a lot of depth is given and there isn’t much of an emotional hook. While it initially appeals in the chaos, things just become tiring and even feel empty. Character development is either non-existent or just consists of a few scenes of characters blatantly stating their arcs over the course of the runtime.

There are certainly a number of references to real life comedians, and many of them are portrayed here by actors here. That said, I’ve only heard of a handful of them, let alone know enough about them for their appearances to elicit any kind of reaction from me. I only state this because there are multiple times in which it feels like you’re supposed to cheer in recognition, and it just didn’t have that effect on me. I was content to just view Saturday Night as a pure comedy, unfortunately I really didn’t find it to be that funny. The jokes were very hit or miss for me, and the film only occasionally reached the level of ‘occasionally amusing’ for me.

This movie does at least benefit from a talented ensemble cast. Gabriel LaBelle and Cooper Hoffman were the standouts for me, they honestly carried much of the movie. There’s also a lot of other really good performances from the cast, including Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons. That said, I think that most of the actors are limited by how many characters are in this one movie, resulting in many of them not having enough screentime. However, the actors are at least good in their parts and make the most of their scenes, including Lamorne Morris and Dylan O’Brien. The one exception is Nicholas Braun, who delivers two genuinely bad performances as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson.

Jason Reitman’s direction is decent enough, I actually think it’s considerably better than the writing. It does much better at creating a frenetic energy throughout, with the fast camera movements, editing, and percussive score. It also does well at conveying the 1970s time period, with it being shot in 16mm, and recreating the period-accurate sets.

While the screenplay and humour are very messy and flawed, Saturday Night is just about passable with some good direction and strong performances, especially from Gabriel LaBelle and Cooper Hoffman.