Saturday Night
Year: 2024
Rating: R
Length: 109 minutes / 1.82 hours
Say what you will about whatever era of Saturday Night Live you want to pick on, but the fact that this show has been on the air for 50 years is astonishing. Even more so when you realize how close it came to not airing on that first night at all. All the iconic moments that have become part of pop culture over its five-decade run should be placed in the context of what Lorne Michaels was trying to do with this ragtag group of comedians.
Saturday Night (2024) is a look into that last hour before the very first episode aired in 1975. I appreciated the ticking-clock aspect that director Jason Reitman brought to this film to emphasize how much still had to come together to make the show work. That everything is moving in real time shows just how frenzied these last-minute preparations were for everyone. There were quite a few moments where something would go wrong or a critical decision needed to happen where I honestly thought the entire premise would come toppling down. This made the ending just that much more satisfying when everything miraculously came together.
Perhaps the biggest flex this movie has going for it is how well the cast looks and feels like the original actors. Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Akroyd, Matt Wood as John Belushi, and Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner were definitely some of the standout performances that make this movie work. It probably didn’t hurt that there were enough hints at some of those well-known SNL bits from that first season to make long-time fans of the show point at the screen like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme. Even if you don’t care for SNL now, this movie was an engaging moment in television history.
A well-cast, tautly timed historical comedy, I give Saturday Night 5.0 stars out of 5.
