2024 - SATURDAY NIGHT, lame comedy/drama about the famous TV Show.

Exactly who was this film made for and more importantly who would be going to see it. "Saturday Night Live" the long running late night comedy show is now fifty years old which probably makes its original audience in the seventy to eighty year age range, hardly the hip group of moviegoers the filmmakers were probably hoping to attract to their film

This is a  comedy with small pieces of drama and it's clearly a tribute to Lorne Michaels who at 80 years old is still running the show and to think they complained about Trump and Biden"s ages during the election.  I don't think this film is an especially positive treatment of Michaels who I understand was a pretty cool character under pressure.  The young Michaels looks like he is about to crack up dealing with a nervous bunch of NBC executives who are ready to run an old episode of The Johnny Carson show should he fall on his face and  a staff of pothead comedians and writers who are basically a bunch of malcontents.   Did all this stuff really happen?  Well sort of.

The film has been carefully cast with actors impersonating the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" and the  goofy writing staff.   A standout is the actor Tommy Dewey playing Michael O'Donoghue.   O'Donoghue was probably the biggest misanthrope writer Saturday Night Live had on staff and was responsible for some of it's sickest and funniest skits until he was fired.

Saturday Night wants to say how important the show was to the cultural zeitgeist of the mid 70's but at times it also wants to get serious about the show's treatment of the only black performer Garrett Morris which was almost board line racist in real life.  However that's all brushed away as the film races to the premier of the first show which is treated like it was the second coming of the Ten Commandments.  If the filmmakers really wanted to get serious maybe the could have discussed the misogyny of John Belusi and some of Chevy Chase's less than sterling interactions with the cast. 

The film was written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, the running time is 109 minues.