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A Night at the Roxbury is a 1998 comedy film based on a recurring skit on television's long-running Saturday Night Live called The Roxbury Guys. Saturday Night Live regulars Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, and Molly Shannon star.
The film sees Kattan and Ferrell reprise their SNL characters, dense nightclubbing brothers Doug and Steve Butabi. In the original sketches, Doug and Steve were often joined by that night's guest, credited as 'barhop' (including turns by Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Alec Baldwin, Jack Nicholson, and Sylvester Stallone parodying his familiar Rocky Balboa role), but the barhop role was dropped during production of the film.
Other roles include Jennifer Coolidge as a police officer, Chazz Palminteri's uncredited role as gregarious night club impresario Mr. Benny Zadir, and Colin Quinn as his bodyguard. Ex-SNLer Mark McKinney has a cameo as a priest officiating a wedding.
Plot synopsis
Wearing rayon suits, Speedo trunks, hair gel and cologne, wealthy Yemenite-American brothers Steve (Will Ferrell) and Doug Butabi (Chris Kattan) enjoy frequenting nightclubs, where they bob their heads in unison to dance music (specifically Haddaway's hit song "What Is Love") and fail miserably at picking up women. Their dream is to party at the Roxbury, a fabled nightclub where they are continually denied entrance by a hulking bouncer (Michael Clarke Duncan).
By day, the brothers work at a fake-plant store owned by their wealthy father, Kamehl Butabi (Dan Hedaya). They spend most of their time goofing off, daydreaming about opening a club as cool as the Roxbury together, and Doug uses credit card transactions as an excuse to hit on a phone approval operator. They also have an annoying habit of overenthusiastically retelling to everyone they stand in line with their story of how they met Emilio Estevez while waiting in line to use a payphone. Also not amusing to anyone but themselves is a supposed joke in which they "trick" a questioner by answering, "No" before switching to their "real" answer, "Yes." Walking down to their father's store, to the beat of "Stayin Alive", they try to pick a girl (Gina Mari) walking toward them, only to get beaten up by her.
The store shares a wall with a lighting emporium owned by Fred Sanderson (Dwayne Hickman of Dobie Gillis fame). Both Mr. Butabi and Mr. Sanderson hope that Steve and Emily (Molly Shannon), Sanderson's daughter, will marry, uniting the families and the businesses to form the first plant-lamp emporium.
After a day at the beach, in which the Doug and Steve try to pick up women while wearing matching thongs, the brothers decide that tonight is the night they will finally get into the Roxbury. Returning home to the gauchely decorated bedroom they share, Doug, still wearing the same outfit as at the beach, gets into a heated argument with their father about going out clubbing instead of staying home. (Their father has planned a dinner party with Emily and her parents.) The angered Mr. Butabi then denies them access to their BMW car and to their cell phones. Given enormous cell phones by their mother (Loni Anderson) and allowed use of the fake-plant store's delivery van[3] they are quickly rejected by the doorman (Michael Clarke Duncan). After discovering they might bribe their way into the club, the brothers drive around looking for an ATM. They get into a fender-bender with Richard Grieco (playing himself) and, to avoid a lawsuit, Grieco uses his fame to get them into the popular club. There they meet the owner of the Roxbury, Mr. Zadir (Chazz Palminteri), who listens to their ideas for a nightclub of their own. He likes them and sets up a meeting with them for the next day. The brothers also meet a pair of women at the Roxbury: Vivica (Gigi Rice) and Cambi (Elisa Donovan), who see Doug and Steve talking to Mr. Zadir and assume that the brothers are rich.
On the way to the after party at Mr. Zadir's house the brothers annoy his driver and bodyguard Dooey (Colin Quinn) by making him stop to buy fluffy whip and making jokes about sleeping with his mother. As revenge, the next day Dooey denies them entry to Mr. Zadir's office for their meeting. He tells the brothers that Mr. Zadir was drunk out of his mind last night and doesn't know who they are, though Zadir really does want to see them (but doesn't have their contact information). Afterwards, the girls break up with the Butabi brothers after discovering they're not really wealthy. The brothers fight and Doug moves out of their shared bedroom and into the guest house. Meanwhile Steve is forced into an engagement with the Sandersons' daughter, Emily. The wedding is held in the backyard of the Butabi residence, but is interrupted by Doug: Having gone on a fluffy-whip-fueled bender, he stands atop the guest house staircase with a boom-box blasting the song "What Is Love" (an allusion to the movie Say Anything).
As Doug begins bobbing his head, Steve cannot help but mimic his brother, a sign that he is beginning to remember what he really wants and who he truly is. Steve breaks off the marriage to Emily and departs. In an act of desperation, Steve's former personal trainer/friend/best man Craig (Lochlyn Munro) opts to marry Emily, admitting his longtime crush on her. Emily agrees to marry Craig as long as he promises to invest in infomercials and protein bars. Meanwhile, Richard Grieco (a guest at the wedding) talks to Mr. Butabi and helps him understand that Steve was not ready for marriage, and that Butabi is too hard on his son Doug. The brothers forgive each other and then proceed to go clubbing in their new colored suits.
The movie ends as the Butabi brothers happen upon a hot new club opened by Mr. Zadir. The building is unique in that the exterior is constructed to resemble the interior of a nightclub, and the interior resembles a street—this was an idea pitched by Doug and Steve earlier in the movie. Attempting to enter, they are surprised to find their names on the VIP list. In addition, Mr. Zadir reveals that to reward their idea, he has made them part-owners of the club. Their newfound success comes full circle when they meet another two women in the club: Doug's phone representative from the credit card company (Meredith Scott Lynn) and a police officer (Jennifer Coolidge) whom Steve earlier flirted with while getting a ticket. Out on the dance floor, Doug, Steve, and the two women begin to bob their heads in unison to "What Is Love," and all the other nightclub patrons do the same.
Cast
Soundtrack
- What Is Love? - Haddaway
- Bamboogie (Radio Edit) - Bamboo
- Make That Money (Roxbury Remix) - Robi Rob's Club World
- Disco Inferno - Cyndi Lauper
- Do Ya Think I'm Sexy - N-Trance featuring Rod Stewart
- Pop Muzik - 3rd Party
- Insomnia (Monster Mix) - Faithless
- Be My Lover (Club Mix) - La Bouche
- This Is Your Night - Amber
- Beautiful Life - Ace of Base
- Where Do You Go (Ocean Drive Mix) - No Mercy
- A Little Bit of Ecstasy - Jocelyn Enriquez
- What is Love? (Refreshmento Extro Radio Mix) - Haddaway
- Careless Whisper - Tamia
- Secret Garden - Bruce Springsteen
- Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
References
- ^ http://www.saturday-night-live.com/snl/news/1999/october/studios_see_green.html
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=nightattheroxbury.htm
- ^ A Night at the Roxbury, (1998) at Internet Movie Cars Database
External links
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