THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980) **** Life is short, and there are so many things that you can believe in. If you need to believe in a film, this is an excellent candidate. If James Brown was preachin', I'd be goin' to church every day. And, if you watch closely and listen, James Brown is preachin', and you are in church every day. So many tribes are mocked, even the religious one for which Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi are willing to risk it all. Nothing is perfect in the world, we can hear the echoes of Spinoza filtered through Steve Cropper's amp, except for intent. With most of America continuing its gradual turn away, Belushi & Co. glorify excess, nonconformity, contempt for authority, highly questionable sartorial decisions, Nazi-baiting, and salvation delivered by the rhythm of a backbeat. Belushi and Akyroyd dancing is worth the price of admission, particularly in the final scenes with the audience bathed in blue light (John Landis). Almost as an aside joke at Hollywood formula, but in fact to spare Landis and Aykroyd from having to think much to get out of tricky bits of the screenplay, Carrie Fisher arises from the bowels of what may be sewage tunnels (subconsciousness is not so easily read as most Cayce enthusiasts pretend), armed to the teeth, a vision that must have plagued Patty Hearst years earlier, when she was still having trouble understanding her homework. And of course, the music. Not just Soul Brother #1, the Godfather of Soul! James Brown hissef!!!!!, but also Aretha Franklin raining on Belushi after the most memorable diner order in the history of film, Ray Charles gunnin' at thieves through instinct (this must be how he prevailed in the wars of the record world), Cab Calloway reminding us that what some folks was doin' before the '60s was already cool; Donald Dunn and Lou Marini making it almost appear as if honkeys were meant to groove; John Lee Hooker, Pinetop Perkins, the dancers on the street demonstrating that music is about so much more than rock stars. Also the best series of car chases ever filmed, Twiggy hot and stood up standing by an XKE, and John Candy as a cop! Yeah, right; great mythology and religious visions should probably never be taken exactly literally. We are all, incidentally, on a mission from God.
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