In Saturday Night, eccentric comedic talent, inexperienced producers, and outright chaos collide in a portrayal of the hectic hours leading up to the debut of Saturday Night Live, an entertaining if not particularly deep riff on the early days of Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, John Belushi and many others.
Some critics panned Saturday Night for not having any real purpose or substance, perhaps because at the time of release there was some Oscar buzz around it. And as an Oscar contender, sure, there isn’t enough to really sink your teeth into.
But with those expectations removed, Saturday Night is a fun, lively, and fast-paced procedural that depicts the many things at play behind the scenes of a live TV show and gives us portrayals of many of the stars we’d come to know and love.
Director Jason Reitman keeps the camera moving and the balls flying (and dropping) with an energetic and chaotically enjoyable vortex of things happening all at once. In semi-real-time, Reitman plunges the audience into one breathless scenario after the next. Sure, the pace and freneticness may mask a lack of real substance, but who cares? It’s a crazy spectacle to behold.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.