The Blues Brothers DVD and Movie Review

The Blues Brothers

DVD and Movie Review

Why isn't Blues Brothers mentioned in the same breath as other great musicals? I'm no fan of the genre, but I feel somewhat aggrieved that Dan Aykroyd's 1980 masterpiece isn't recognised as both a comedic and sonic tour de force.

The Blues Brothers grew from a Saturday Night Live skit. The band, also fronted by the late John Belushi, appeared as a musical act during the 1978 season. They released an album the same year, and then, prompted that there was interest in producing a feature film, Aykroyd set to work on a script.

What resulted was pure gold, from a writer who has since lost his touch. “Joliet” Jake Blues (Belushi) has just been released from Joliet prison, Illinois, into the waiting arms of his brother Elwood (Aykroyd). They attend the orphanage where they grew up, and are told by one of the nuns that the institution will close unless the boys can procure – by lawful means - $5,000 which is owed in back taxes. Jake and Elwood decide to get their band – The Blues Brothers – back together, and earn the money by performing. Throw in some Illinois Nazis, a crazy stalker played by Carrie “Princess Leia” Fisher and a heaping helping of musical cameos, and you've got yourself one enduring musical comedy.

The term “musical comedy” makes me cringe, because it brings to mind movies so disconnected from reality that the viewer may as well be watching a cartoon. The comedy lighter than air, a liberal helping of awkwardly telegraphed musical numbers only serving to make any offering in the genre seem dated from the moment of production. Blues Brothers manages to avoid this pitfall; it helps though that the script was co-written by an SNL alum, and that gritty Rhythm and Blues lines the soundtrack.

The cast is a plethora of perfection. Belushi and Aykroyd are the only main players, the rest of the ensemble being confined to cameos of varying length. But what cameos; no less than Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, James Brown and John Lee Hooker contribute songs to the production. John Candy, Frank “Yoda” Oz, and the aforementioned Carrie Fisher line out for the actors. Thankfully none of Jake and Elwood's backing band have too many lines; they keep to their strengths, concerning themselves with their instruments for a large part of the movie.

I will again go on record as disliking John Landis as a director. I feel that his successful projects have always benefited from powerhouse scripts (some of which, I should fairly point out, he also wrote), and that his direction has ruined a number of potentially decent movies; cases in point Beverly Hills Cop 3.

The DVD I watched was a single-disc affair with scant extras. The one gem I carried away was Dan Aykroyd's story about writing the first draft of his script. Most screenplays are approximately 100-120 pages long (one page of script equates to about one minute of screen time). When Aykroyd turned in his treatment, it was 324 pages in length. Rather than shy away from this fact, he decided to have the script bound to look like a yellow pages book.

So there you have it; Blues Brothers combined comedy and musicality and was equally adept at doing both. Avoid the 1998 sequel; even though it starred the often-excellent John Goodman and Aretha finally got to sing the more popular Respect, it isn't a patch on the original.

Movie: 9/10

Extras: 4/10