The nicest thing you can say about Uptown Saturday Night is that it's Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte and Richard Pryor hamming it up in front of the camera and having a grand old time. If you'd just like to watch these guys have fun, you'd enjoy this movie. If you're looking for more than that, you'll not find it here.
Steve (Poitier) is a happily married factory worker. Wardell (Cosby and his amazing beard) is Steve's cab driving, fast talking, rambunctious buddy. Wardell talks Steve into going to a high class, after hours social club called Madame Zenobia's. The more uptight Steve is having a great time tagging along with the more adventurous Wardell, right up until the place gets robbed by armed gunmen. But that's more than just a bad ending to a great night. The next day Steve looks in the paper and discovers he and his wife won the lottery but the ticket was in his wallet that the robbers stole. That sends Steve and Wardell off to track down the robbers and recover the wallet, leading them into a series of comical encounters with a number of colorful characters, including con man Sharp Eye Washington (Richard Pryor) and gangster Geechie Dan (Harry Belafonte doing a terrible impression of Marlon Brando from The Godfather). Steve and Wardell end up pursuing the robbers to, of all things, a church social and after a suitcase vs. hammer fight and the fakest looking pair of dives off a bridge you'll ever see in cinema well, I think you can guess the ending.
There's not really a whole lot more to say about Uptown Saturday Night. It's one of those comedies where there really aren't that many jokes. There's some slapstick and other broad humor, but mostly it's about watching the actors vamp and seemingly improv their way through their scenes. It's all fairly energetic and some of it's quite good. I genuinely enjoyed a bit more than the first half of the film, but after that I realized there was nothing more to the movie and it lost some of its zing. The funniest stretch in the film is probably when Steve and Wardell visit their local congressman (Roscoe Lee Browne) to complain about being robbed and it turns out the congressman is a closet Nixon fan passing himself off as another "brother from the 'hood".
There's really nothing that wrong with Uptown Saturday Night, although aside from some mild profanity it seems a lot more like a TV movie from the 70s than a big screen production. But how many other films have Poitier, Cosby, Cosby's immense beard, Belafonte and Pryor in them? If just that is enough for you, go out and rent a copy of this movie. But you can certainly find better movies starring each of those men individually.
Steve (Poitier) is a happily married factory worker. Wardell (Cosby and his amazing beard) is Steve's cab driving, fast talking, rambunctious buddy. Wardell talks Steve into going to a high class, after hours social club called Madame Zenobia's. The more uptight Steve is having a great time tagging along with the more adventurous Wardell, right up until the place gets robbed by armed gunmen. But that's more than just a bad ending to a great night. The next day Steve looks in the paper and discovers he and his wife won the lottery but the ticket was in his wallet that the robbers stole. That sends Steve and Wardell off to track down the robbers and recover the wallet, leading them into a series of comical encounters with a number of colorful characters, including con man Sharp Eye Washington (Richard Pryor) and gangster Geechie Dan (Harry Belafonte doing a terrible impression of Marlon Brando from The Godfather). Steve and Wardell end up pursuing the robbers to, of all things, a church social and after a suitcase vs. hammer fight and the fakest looking pair of dives off a bridge you'll ever see in cinema well, I think you can guess the ending.
There's not really a whole lot more to say about Uptown Saturday Night. It's one of those comedies where there really aren't that many jokes. There's some slapstick and other broad humor, but mostly it's about watching the actors vamp and seemingly improv their way through their scenes. It's all fairly energetic and some of it's quite good. I genuinely enjoyed a bit more than the first half of the film, but after that I realized there was nothing more to the movie and it lost some of its zing. The funniest stretch in the film is probably when Steve and Wardell visit their local congressman (Roscoe Lee Browne) to complain about being robbed and it turns out the congressman is a closet Nixon fan passing himself off as another "brother from the 'hood".
There's really nothing that wrong with Uptown Saturday Night, although aside from some mild profanity it seems a lot more like a TV movie from the 70s than a big screen production. But how many other films have Poitier, Cosby, Cosby's immense beard, Belafonte and Pryor in them? If just that is enough for you, go out and rent a copy of this movie. But you can certainly find better movies starring each of those men individually.