THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980)

Brothers Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) Blues are in a bit of a bind, and that’s putting it lightly. With the former having just been released from prison, the Blues brothers have barely any time to come up with the $5,000 necessary to save the orphanage they were raised in from being closed. It would seem that the only natural thing to do would be to revive their blues band, the Blues Brothers, but that involves recruiting their former bandmates, who are scattered across Chicago and have moved on to more dependable careers. Less natural is the fact that the down-on-their-luck brothers have managed to assemble an unofficial army against them, whether that’s in the form of a group of local neo-Nazis, police units, and a mysterious woman ready to murder the pair wherever they roam (portrayed by Carrie Fisher and credited as ‘Mystery Woman’).

The greatest strengths of The Blues Brothers come from its strange and impossible to define place as a feature film. Originally a series of Saturday Night Live (SNL) skits from popular cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, this fictional band performed some live shows before reinventing their act once again in John Landis’ 1980 film. So, is the band a serious venture, or a comedic one? The Blues Brothers won’t answer that question, and it’s in that unpredictability that its controlled chaos shines.

There are even times when the film appears to poke at the elasticity of its plotting and that which surrounds its conception. Car chase scenes, for instance, persist for so long that they outdo their comedy, become a semi-serious piece of action, then double down on their humorous element. When Jake and Elwood crash a vehicle through a set of glass doors, one expects the disastrous chase mission between them and raving police officers or Neo-Nazis to end there, but instead these scenes will continue for what feels like several minutes, with screaming bystanders racing from the incoming burst of noise and fury.

Such scenes are so explosive that you’re only afforded a half second or so to marvel at the various car crashes and damaged property left in the wreckage before the brothers’ self-proclaimed Bluesmobile charges forward to arrive at a new target of destruction. Then it’s on to the mission at hand, doggedly pressing forward even as the film’s comedy asks you to look outside the bounds of its narrative and remark upon how gleefully it prolongs its chaos. Should a comedy about a blues revue band feature this many car chase scenes without becoming something else entirely? Can it? Asking the question seems as futile as trying to answer it; that sense of spontaneity, of being unable to define what exactly binds the film’s action and comedy beyond a desire to outdo itself at every turn, is what makes The Blues Brothers so damn fun.

The film’s humour transcends its enjoyable but small-scale origins to become a larger-than-life experience, brimming with the joyful exuberance of a great blues track. And there are many such tunes throughout The Blues Brothers, with lovable appearances from James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, and Ray Charles. If one of these icons of this genre is present in a scene, chances are most of its characters will break out into song in the next 60 seconds. Because this film keeps toying with what it wants to be, some of these musical numbers are both superfluous and highly entertaining. It’s very easy to forget that this movie is partly a musical, so you’re left to question why so many of these scenes are needed given that the only musical numbers that truly matter won’t occur until the brothers perform their grand concert. But, as is usually the case with The Blues Brothers, the fun is in not asking any questions and accepting the wild ride it takes you on.

Besides, given The Blues Brothers’ gleeful flair for theatrics and how enjoyable it is to bask in them, it’s only right that the logic of a scene’s reality should get turned on its head as characters break out into song and extras transform into backup singers and dancers. My favourite moment where the extras suddenly get involved in the film’s comedy is when all the guests in a restaurant’s dining room turn to give their undivided attention to Jake and Elwood, who, despite their three-piece suits, stand out as philistines. It’s such an enjoyable moment that Landis incorporated a very similar interaction in his 1983 comedy Trading Places (also starring Aykroyd).

Speaking of which, I can’t imagine the film being nearly as successful with any other director at the helm. Aykroyd might have written the first draft of the script, and he and Belushi are surprisingly convincing given the latter’s notorious partying and rampant substance abuse during filming, but it is The Blues Brothers’ director who is the true hero of this project. Landis is one of cinema’s finest comedic filmmakers, with a prolific output—especially in the 1980s—that remains criminally underrated even if the individual films have received acclaim. Few decade-long portions of directors’ careers could have produced as strong a slew of films as The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London (1981), Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and Coming to America (1988).

In the hands of almost any other director, The Blues Brothers’ opening scene would be routine, a matter of joylessly establishing the two protagonists, Jake’s release from prison, and the fact that they’ve got places to be. Instead, every ounce of comedy is squeezed from this opening scene, whether it’s watching Belushi lean forward awkwardly to sign his release form, or two absurdly tall gates opening up to reveal his shadowy figure standing alone, his backdrop a fiery orange, like a mythical being who’s just escaped from Hell and emerged as the stuff of legend. Over the course of the next two hours, both characters will become just that as they do the impossible, finally learning to become good, honest people by selflessly serving the greater good (even if that involves committing illegal acts and shunning social niceties along the way).

These are lovable rogues and tricksters, where their criminality never amounts to more than minor (if oft-repeated) transgressions. For all its madcap antics, there’s a surprising degree of grace afforded to these characters. Almost any other movie would make them remarkably dim, oafish figures, but co-screenwriters Aykroyd and Landis had the sense not to make the brothers slapstick fools being broken down by everyday society or outlandish villains. They’re always committed to the cause, and so are we, lucky enough to be watching Landis, Aykroyd, and Belushi firing on all cylinders throughout the experience. You might not be thinking of the end result when the film’s characters break out into song or a daring chase, but Jake and Elwood’s overarching quest is absorbing all the same.

You want only for the brothers to succeed at first, but after enough time is spent in this fictional universe it becomes clear that that’s not a clear enough goal; you want for them to retain their souls in the face of evil, torment, and the drudgery of working life. While I think it’s a missed opportunity to let the reason for the brothers’ love of blues go unexplored, The Blues Brothers wins you over with its soulfulness as it insists that it matters little if Jake and Elwood are behind bars or free men so long as they can retain their spirit, teeing up a fantastic ending that accomplishes everything it sets out to achieve.

USA | 1980 | 133 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: John Landis.
writers: Dan Aykroyd & John Landis.
starring: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Carrie Fisher, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, James Brown, Ray Charles, Kathleen Freeman, Henry Gibson, Mathew Tyler Murphy & John Candy.