Rating of
3/4
"The Blues Brothers" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/19/12
Jake and Elwood Blues are on a mission from god to put their band back together and raise money to stop the closure of their childhood orphanage. Looked at objectively, The Blues Brothers is one of THE most blatant exercises in self-indulgence ever perpetrated in cinema; it's obviously just a bunch of guys who got together and decided to wreck a load of police cars, blow some buildings up and dance around to their favourite tunes. Despite (or more likely, because of) this, it's become a huge cult. On the surface there doesn't appear to be as many laughs as there should, but that's probably more to do with the fact that the film is a good half hour longer than it should be than anything else. Aykroyd and Belushi's deadpan delivery works perfectly amid the slapstick carnage, and there are lots of funny moments, not least their visit with the penguin, the restaurant scene, Jake's reconciliation with a homicidal Carrie Fisher and the hilariously over the top final chase sequence when they are pursued by the entire Illinois police department, the national guard, a redneck country and western band and the Chicago chapter of the American Nazi party! But what this film is really all about is the music, and it contains some of the greats of blues, soul and R'n'B (and I mean REAL R'n'B, not the soulless drivel that sounds like Stephen Hawking yodelling nursery rhymes that infests the charts these days). In the space of three scenes you have performances by John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. If you can't appreciate that then you don't deserve to own a pair of ears.
