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Rating: They are on a mission from God, and no one can stop them. Who knows, maybe today they have stopped running towards destiny and have hung up their shoes. Certainly, their passage made some noise; it wasn't just a simple cameo. Elwood and Jake, the Blues Brothers are now just a memory, one of those memories destined to last over time: long and narrow ties, dark Ray-Ban sunglasses, a strong desire for transgression, and a total passion for music (but in essence, for them, it's just a way to make money) that we will hardly forget.
The Blues Brothers are John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. One is dead, the other is not. And the one still alive is not Aykroyd. The Blues Brothers were made immortal by John Landis, a director who promised great things (also excellent is "Trading Places"), but who then got lost in the Hollywood zoo. It was 1980 when "The Blues Brothers" hit theaters, and it was instant mythology. Elwood and Jack immediately captured the public's hearts: ingenious, crazy, clumsy, vulgar, uncontainable. That exuberant desire for freedom, that underlying anarchy that revealed itself in every gesture and every word, that alternative way of desecrating the moralistic American model was the keystone of a success that still seems unwilling to fade.
Among the two Blues Brothers, the more anarchic was Jake, that is, John Belushi himself. From the vulgarities of "Animal House" to the uncontainable freshness of "The Blues Brothers," the step is short: John was a wise fool, one who knew no half measures, just like in the movies (i.e., fiction) and in life (i.e., reality), he loved to live life to the fullest, living everything now and immediately, without waiting, suffering, in fact, when there was a wait involved. Wild nights and indescribable passions, there was no difference between John Belushi and Jake Blues, and I believe he had no problem playing his characters. He made fun of everything and everyone, he scoffed America and life, and he left at 33 for having played a bit too much with cocaine and heroin.
"The Blues Brothers" is John Belushi, but it's also more. It's a film that deconstructs from within the most overused cinematic techniques. Anyone who thinks a movie needs a strong screenplay to work is gravely mistaken. The screenplay of this film could even have been written by a somewhat smart child just out of elementary school (instead, it's the work of Aykroyd and Landis). The slender storyline, of two misfits who don't want to see the orphanage where they grew up fail, is just slightly more than a sketch that, in the hands of some senseless director, could have risked sinking after half an hour. Therefore, what strikes about this film is the absolute brilliance of its intertwining: the sequences are so powerful and deliberately epic that they make us forget what kind of incredibly banal little story we are watching.
"The Blues Brothers" is the classic film that boasts on its own (the emblematic scenes are countless) but never stalls, proceeding from beginning to end without even tangling or losing focus. A film as long as a dream, as a slightly worn-out road-movie, good to enjoy some laughs and revisit some blues classics. A film halfway between the ironies of Saturday Night Live (from which Aykroyd and Belushi emerged, as well as Eddie Murphy) and the TV rhythm of classic US series, from "Miami Vice" to "Starsky & Hutch" (see the entire long chase finale through the streets of Chicago). All seasoned with hilarious jokes on the verge of absurdity.
And some things, with all good will, you just can’t get out of your head: Jake coming out of jail with his and his brother's names tattooed on his knuckles (a beautiful homage to "The Night of the Hunter" where the protagonist, Robert Mitchum, has 'love' and 'hate' tattooed on his knuckles); the band’s first performance where Elwood and Jack start singing the legendary "Everybody Needs Somebody"; the comic scene at the restaurant (hilarious Belushi speaking with a clear Russian accent); the raps on the hands the Mother Superior gives to the two brothers to redeem them (but by then it's too late, you would want to whisper to her); the aforementioned chase through the streets of Chicago, where indeed the cars involved in various accidents were smashed and destroyed.
To make this film even more precious and unattainable, there are the abundant cameos scattered here and there. James Brown, a frenzied preacher; Aretha Franklin, singing "Respect" in her bar (almost a monument of beauty); Ray Charles, musical instruments seller; Cab Calloway intent on singing the splendid "Minnie The Moocher"; the director Frank Oz, the prison officer; Steven Spielberg, the clerk who collects the money the Blues Brothers deliver to the tax office at the end of the long chase; and John Landis himself, in the role of La Fong, a police officer by profession. And a good dose of fun that, despite 27 years of viewings and continuous dissections, doesn’t seem to want to fade. Rightly so.
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