October 1–8, 1998

movie shorts

A Night At the Roxbury

What is love? You gotta wonder, when the Butabi brothers get their own feature film. Granted, producer Lorne Michaels has never let paltry material keep him from making movies out of SNL skit characters. But the Butabis (Will Ferrell as gangly Steve and Chris Kattan as weasely Doug) are especially dismal to watch for 80-something minutes, more like Pat than Wayne and Garth. On TV, the brothers are wild and crazy guys, degenerated. They don't talk, but instead, use their brief sketch-times to swagger, strut, spit and flail about in disco-like settings. Unfortunately, in John Fortenberry's movie (co-written by Ferrell, Kattan and Steve Koren), they talk a lot, mostly about how good they look to each other. Their mutual homoerotic attraction is apparently a joke, because the film repeats it mercilessly, especially in the Jerry Maguire-derived finale: says Doug to Steve, "You. Complete. Me." Cue teary embrace music. Whatever their preferences, they have a plainly dysfunctional supporting cast, including plasticized Loni Anderson for a mom, bloated Richard Grieco as an idol, unbilled Chazz Palminteri as a business partner, and aging Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hickman) as a neighbor.

-Cindy Fuchs