Summaries

Two dim-witted brothers dream of owning their own dance club or at least getting into the coolest and most exclusive club in town, The Roxbury.

The Roxbury Guys, Steve and Doug Butabi, want to get into the best club in town, and also hope to open their own club. Vivica, a gold-digging supermodel, and her friend Cambi try to work the Roxbury Guys for their money, only to find out the pair is broke.—Sean Bradley <[email protected]>

Steve and Doug Butabi dream of opening their own club as cool as the Roxbury. The problem is, they are so uncool, they've never even been inside the Roxbury. They still live at home and work at a plant store owned by their dad who is pressuring Steve to marry Emily, the daughter of the owner of the neighboring lamp store.—Anonymous

Steve and Doug Butabi are club-hopping brothers whose father only wants them to work in his fake plant store. Steve and Doug share one dream - to open their own nightclub. This is complicated, however, by the fact that they can't even get into the one club that they'd give anything to be in. Things start to look up for them when one night they get into a car accident with Richard Grieco who gets them into the club where they meet two "hotties", Cambi and Vivica. There's also Emily, the goody-two shoes college girl who Steve's father wants him to marry.—Caroline

Details

Keywords
  • father son relationship
  • nightclub
  • dancing
  • actor plays himself
  • based on sketch comedy
Genres
  • Comedy
  • Romance
  • Music
Release date Oct 1, 1998
Motion Picture Rating (MPA) PG-13
Countries of origin United States
Language English
Filming locations Beverly Hills, California, USA
Production companies Paramount Pictures Broadway Pictures SNL Studios

Box office

Budget $17000000
Gross US & Canada $30331165
Opening weekend US & Canada $9604791
Gross worldwide $30331740

Tech specs

Runtime 1h 22m
Color Color
Sound mix DTS Dolby Digital
Aspect ratio 1.85 : 1

Synopsis

Wealthy Yemeni American brothers Steve (Will Ferrell) and Doug Butabi (Chris Kattan) enjoy frequenting nightclubs, where they bob their heads in unison to Eurodance, a sub-genre of dance music, and fail miserably at picking up women. They hit multiple night clubs in a single night and try to force unwilling women to dance with them. They are continually thrown out of clubs by their security staff when enough women complain about their behavior. Their goal is to party at the Roxbury, a fabled Los Angeles nightclub where they are continually denied entry by a hulking bouncer (Michael Clarke Duncan). The brothers dream of opening their own night club where wannabes will be treated just as equally as any TV star or celebrity.They are given a $80 ticket by a hottie police officer (Jennifer Coolidge) for speeding down a main street downtown. Steve tries to flirt with her but she gently brushes him off and goes back to patrolling the streets. The brothers share a room at home.

By day, the brothers work at an artificial plant store owned by their wealthy father, Kamehl Butabi (Dan Hedaya). They spend most of their time goofing off, daydreaming about opening a club as cool as the Roxbury together, and Doug using credit card transactions as an excuse to flirt with a card approval associate via telephone that he calls "Credit Vixen." (Meredith Scott Lynn).The store shares a wall with a lighting emporium owned by Fred Sanderson (Dwayne Hickman). Mr. Butabi and Mr. Sanderson hope that Steve and Emily (Molly Shannon), Sanderson's daughter, will marry, uniting the families and the businesses to form the first plant-lamp emporium.Emily has a huge crush on Steve, but Doug hates Emily and tells her that Steve is not available as they both live their lives in the fast lane.

After a day at the beach the brothers decide that night was to be the night they would finally get into the Roxbury. Returning home, Doug gets into a heated argument with their father about going out clubbing instead of staying home. Their father has planned a dinner party with Emily and her parents. The angered Mr. Butabi then refuses them access to their BMW car and their cell phones.They are given enormous cell phones by their mother, Barbara (Loni Anderson) (just so they have some form of communication during an emergency) and allowed use of the fake-plant store's delivery van, but they are immediately rejected once again by the doorman at the Roxbury.

After discovering they might bribe their way into the club, the brothers drive around looking for an ATM. They get into a fender-bender with Richard Grieco and, to avoid a lawsuit (as he was driving an illegal racing car when he crashed it and did not want to attract the attention of cops), Grieco uses his fame to get them into the popular Roxbury club.

There, they meet the owner of the Roxbury, Benny Zadir (Chazz Palminteri), who listens to their idea for their own nightclub. Doug says that they will create a club where the outside of the club will look just like the inside of the club with couches and the music, and the inside of the club will look like the outside of the club. He likes them and sets up a meeting with them for the next day.The brothers also meet a pair of women at the Roxbury: Vivica (Gigi Rice) and Cambi (Elisa Donovan), who see them talking to Zadir and think that the brothers are rich. The brothers are their awkward and obnoxious self, but the ladies are determined to hook and reel them in.The women later sleep with Doug and Steve, leading the brothers to think they are in "serious relationships."

On the way to the after-party at Mr. Zadir's house, the brothers annoy his driver and bodyguard Dooey (Colin Quinn) by making him stop to buy fluffy whip and making jokes about sleeping with his parents. At Zadir's house, Steve makes a suggestion to put a glass top over the swimming pool to enlarge the dancing space and also add a cool effect of dancing over water. Zadir is impressed with their ideas and is looking forward to their meeting.As revenge, the next day, Dooey refuses them entry into Zadir's office for their meeting. He tells the brothers that Zadir was drunk out of his mind last night and does not know who they are. In reality, Zadir wanted to see them, but does not have their contact information.

Vivica and Cambi break up with the Butabi brothers after realizing they are not actually wealthy. Afterwards, the brothers argue over who is at fault for their sudden misfortune and Doug moves out of their shared bedroom and into the guest house. Meanwhile, Steve is forced into an engagement with Emily by his father.The wedding is held in the backyard of the Butabi residence but is interrupted by Doug. Having gone on a fluffy whip-fueled bender, he interrupts the wedding, reconciles with his brother, and the wedding is called off, only to be restarted as Craig (Lochlyn Munro), the Butabi brothers' personal trainer, reveals his feelings for Emily. Afterwards, Grieco (a guest at the wedding) talks to Mr. Butabi to help him understand that Steve was not ready for marriage, and that Butabi is too hard on Doug.

After the Butabi brothers reconcile with their father and Doug moves back into their bedroom, the film ends as the brothers happen upon a hot new club. The building is unique in that the exterior is constructed to resemble the interior of a nightclub, and the interior resembles a street-this was an idea pitched by Doug and Steve to Zadir earlier in the film.

Attempting to enter, they are surprised to find their names already on the VIP list. In addition, Zadir reveals that to reward their idea, he has made them part-owners of the club. Their new-found success comes full circle when they meet two women in the club: Doug's phone operator from the credit card company ("Credit Vixen") and a police officer with whom Steve flirted while getting a ticket.

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