SATURDAY NIGHT

SATURDAY NIGHT tells the true story of the chaos backstage in the 90 minutes before the first-ever episode of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (SNL) on Oct. 11, 1975. Then movie deploys a largely unknown cast of young acting talents to capture the looks and energy of the groundbreaking comedy program’s electric first cast. The movie’s second half gives viewers an incredible rollercoaster ride, but the first half is rather annoying, with no comic buildup and poor camerawork.

SATURDAY NIGHT is even more greatly marred by political correctness, including a hateful, blasphemous mockery of God, Jesus and Christianity when the head writer argues vehemently with the NBC’s Christian censor. It also has an abundant amount of foul language, numerous lewd jokes and brief shots of show staff using marijuana and cocaine.

The movie opens on the night of SNL’s premiere, with its creator Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) out on the street in front of NBC as he tries to catch his breath and regroup amid the insanity surrounding him upstairs in Studio 8H. Michaels has landed the 11:30 pm time slot on a Saturday night, which had been wasted for years on reruns of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” so the pressure was immense to deliver on what he had promised network executives would be a bold reinvention of variety shows.

That first episode was hosted by legendary counterculture comedian George Carlin, and featured musical guests doing two songs, two different standup performances, seven sketch scenes with the ensemble cast, plus a short film by Albert Brooks, and a sketch by the Muppets. Michaels has a young, supportive NBC exec named Dick Ebersol begging him to find more focus for the show. Meanwhile, an older NBC exec (Willem Dafoe) who keeps ominously warning Michaels that he could pull the plug and run a Tonight Show rerun if everything doesn’t fall into place.

Among the other chaos are a large set of lights exploding, a brick wall falling apart and needing to be rebuilt in just over an hour, and the show’s most subversive talent John Belushi (Matt Wood) indulging in marijuana and cocaine while also refusing to sign his contract, which could legally ban him from being in the program. Michaels continuously shuffles the show outline board. Just minutes before the program airs, Michaels cuts a young comic named Billy Crystal, a crushing blow to Crystal at the time. Of course, Crystal went on to do standup routines on the program, and even to host it multiple times, then becoming a regular cast member in the early 1980s, along with Eddie Murphy.

Director Jason Reitman and his co-writer Gil Kenan built the movie by conducting extensive interviews about the night with as many cast and crew of SNL as possible. Thus, while Reitman cuts back and forth among many different characters, each person in the movie has a vibrant moment (or more) that gives them a chance to shine.

The SNL cast and writers’ greatest challenge is battling the NBC network censor, a strict Christian woman determined to stomp out all foul language or dirty jokes. It’s in a final verbal battle royale between the head writer and the censor that the movie spends about five minutes taking comic shots at alleged Christian uptightness and then descends into a blasphemous mockery of God, the Virgin Mary and Jesus. At the end of the angry confrontation, the cast sarcastically says, “Hail Satan” to the censor, who leaves in a huff.

The first hour of this 110 minute movie risks being extremely annoying. Director Reitman has the camera constantly swerving and swooping through the backstage halls, making viewers feel as dizzy as Michaels appears in the movie. Also, most of the dialogue in the first half is in such fast and mostly serious snippets that the movie doesn’t set up any big laughs.

However, there’s an incredible showdown between Michaels and the two NBC executives, who order him to define the show immediately or else be kept off the air. Their challenge rallies the creator to find a way to make magic out of the madness. In the final 50 minutes, one thing after another starts to go right in surprising ways, as the clock races down to showtime. As a result, the second half of SATURDAY NIGHT invites viewers to cheer as if the movie is like a ROCKY movie, but about comedians.

SATURDAY NIGHT is being released amid SNL’s 50th anniversary season. As such, it will excite and entertain the program’s multi-generational legions of fans. However, it’s unlikely to score as strongly with general viewers who may only know the series on a cursory level. That said, the way in which the movie’s bracing and funny second half turns the tension in the first half upside- down plays brilliantly.

Sadly, however, SATURDAY NIGHT has a strong humanist, politically correct worldview that celebrates the counter-culture spirit of the late 1960s and early 70s. The movie’s satanic attack on Jesus and Christianity in the five-minute conflict between the head writer, the cast and the Christian censor is part of that viewpoint. In this light, it should be noted that one of George Carlin’s monologues in the first SNL episode was an overt humanist attack on the idea of God and religion. This argument with the Christian censor probably did happen, but that’s no excuse.

SATURDAY NIGHT also has a lot of strong pagan, hedonistic content. For example, it has more than 100 obscenities and profanities, including many “f” words and at least six crude profanities using the name of Jesus. It also has some strong, lewd sexual content and references to the heavy drug use among the original SNL cast. It was this drug use that eventually killed one of the funniest original cast members, John Belushi. The obscene, profane and lewd, and the drug references in SATURDAY NIGHT are excessive. The humanist, politically correct and satanic content is clearly abhorrent.