Review: Saturday Night Fever

Saturday Night Fever
Cert: 18 / 109 mins / Dir. John Badham

WARNING: This review contains sweary words.
You have been warned.

Well, I'll be honest, I expected more. Oh, I knew SNF wasn't going to be a shiny-toothed dance-fest, and that we were going to see some Gritty Noo Yoik™ in between the scenes of flashing lights and stomping feet, but what I didn't expect was just under two hours of stilted, mumbled, inconsequential dialogue, delivered appallingly by actors playing characters that I couldn't bring myself to like in any way, shape or form.

Worse than all this, it's boring. Fucking. Boring.

Travolta and Gorney have got the moves alright, but their characters are so deeply flawed that their dancefloor scenes have all the atmosphere of a meeting with an estate agent. The longer the film goes on, the less joy there is in Tony's dancing, as the realisation sets in that not only has he surrounded himself with arseholes, but he fits into this equation perfectly himself. The only character of any interest is Tony's brother, Frank Jr, who's left the priesthood to the disappointment of his religious Italian family. He arrives, tells Tony he's great at dancing, then fucks off in a cardigan. Then nothing happens for a bit. Then there's a rigged dancing competition, an attempted rape, an actual rape, an accidental suicide, and Tony having a bit of a cry into a freezeframe while the credits do their best to sell you the soundtrack.

I don't even think that the problem lies in the film ageing badly; I can imagine it being just as exploitative and emotionally bankrupt in 1977, too. Because it's difficult for me to hold any sympathy for a character who tells a woman she's a cunt while she's crying after he's watched her being raped by his friend.

By the time something finally does happen to the characters, you really wish it hadn't (although not out of any sympathy for them). It's not that the Saturday Night Fever is uncomfortably stark in forcing the audience to confront issues, just that it's tedious and inherently unlikeable.

Well, the trailer's as dull as the film, so…



Nope.



For me, no.



Don't bother. Really.



Yes. I will.



Will I bollocks.



No.

How do you make the Bee Gees boring? Seriously? What the actual fuck?

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