Saturday Night Review

 

I saw Saturday Night, here are my thoughts…

Saturday Night Live tells the story of Loren Michaels as he tries to produce the first episode of Saturday Night Live while dealing with a hectic cast, malfunctioning sets, problem after problem, and intimidating producers.

I’m not a big Saturday Night Live expert, nor do I know every person involved in the show's history (this movie has tone or name drops), but from my limited knowledge, everyone was able to capture the look and feel of the real person.

Everyone in the cast did a good job, too many great performances to call out by name or we’d be here all day, so let me say everyone from the leads to small cameos, everyone did an impressive, entertaining, and funny A+ job. 

I will say one actor did play two characters which I only realized once the credits, it was a very convincing job.

The movie reminded me of the 2015 film “Steve Jobs”, which focused on a certain amount of time for the story instead of trying to recap every major historical event. This is a good way to shake up the bio-pick genre, and let you really explore the characters and the work that went into the show.

There is a lot of plot put into this like the movie is stuffed to the brim with characters, subplots, and storylines, it almost feels too much at times. But like the show the characters are trying to produce, despite its size, the writing is tight and lean, it’s able to balance all these spinning plates and give them all good resolutions and pay off, which is tough to do, so I tip my hat to the filmmaker’s high for pulling that off. 

The pacing is top-notch, and the way it ratchets tension with the chaos and rising concerns of trying to get the show made, and the stakes of them succeeding is very effective.

But as a movie based on comedy sketch show… The movie itself is funny, mostly with characters having funny quips and reactions to things.

Jason Reitman does a lot of cool and slick directing and makes everything feel like a 70’s fast-paced documentary. Certain shots feel like they could’ve been from a '70s movie, the dude knows the period well.

The camera operators worked their butts off, there were a lot of long shots with multiple characters, which can be a hassle to plan for,  but their hard work paid off so happy for them 

Props to the sound mixing, it’s not mind-blowing or anything, but there were a lot of characters talking over each other and just loud sounds and the way it was all layered on top of each other was impressive.

This is one of the biggest surprises of the year for me, just the way everything is so tightly woven together and told in such an efficient yet stylish entertaining way… you can really everyone involved had a great passion for the project. I give it a low five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️