The Blues Brothers
Overall: 73%
Feature: 80% (2 reviews)
Extras: 60%
The Blues Brothers (1980)
It’s not easy to pick a place to start in order to explain ‘The Blues Brothers’ to someone. Its part musical, part action, part comedy. Its plot line revolves around raising money in order to save a church run orphanage. Sounds crap, doesn’t it? Well, guess again as it happens to be a landmark and world record breaker in the world of cinema.
There’s a nostalgic flare to this epic from 1980, crazy and cameo-rich in the tradition of ‘The Cannonball Run’, starring a slim Dan Aykroyd and an alive John Belushi as the heroes of white jazz and R&B. Playing a set of deadpan brothers who are always seen in dark suits and dark sunglasses to match may have lost the giggle factor it had when it was first released but the sheer craziness of the numerous car chases, explosions and the enormous scale on which these things happen is still impressive today. No Computer Generated Imagery here, all of what you see is real. And if that doesn’t impress you, nothing will.
The cast all act the parts perfectly, from Carrie Fisher as a jealous ex-girlfriend who happens to be fond of guns to John Candy as a bumbling police chief right down to Aretha Franklin as a restaurant owner. Meanwhile if you enjoyed rooting against the Nazi’s from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you’ll have enormous fun watching the mickey getting taken out of them in this. Throw in cameos from the director John Landis, supermodel extraordinaire Twiggy, Steven Spielberg, Henry Gibson, James Brown, Ray Charles, Frank Oz, Charles Napier and, looking hard enough, even Mr. T then its clear nothing else like this exists out there.
Featuring one of the best soundtracks in film history and an array of mesmerising tunes it will have you whistling and singing for a good while after the credits have finished rolling. Even if you haven’t seen the film before the songs will be familiar and chances are you’ll recognise quite a few of the dry one liner’s or hilarious throw away comments. On top of that, you’ll then pick up on a tonne of references this film gets in the likes of Family Guy, The Simpsons and other spoofs. Its come along way since the concept started out on ‘Saturday Night Live’.
All in all, you can look for underlying contexts and the themes in which the film tackles but you’ll be hard pressed. This is as much fun as you can get from a film, its really a crazy, chaotic fast flowing story littered with memorable moments and quotes that will leave you disappointed that its finished. And while the temptation to check out the sequel will probably be there, it’s advised against.
Extras:
The DVD itself carries the usual hallmarks of an early release, production notes and the cast and filmmakers biographies are pretty standard stuff. A Trailer is included which really shows how selling a film to an audience has changed over 30 years and the obvious Scene Selection and subtitles are stated. But it’s the feature length documentary ‘The Stories Behind The Making Of’ that really shines as a fantastic and fun DVD extra that’s worth buying the DVD for alone. Educating you on the world record it held for most cars destroyed on film, the stories of how wild John Belushi became, the infamous mall chase scene and other little quirks that make this ‘making of’ one of the best around.
The disc itself has clear detailed picture quality and the sound is as crisp and fresh as it can get.
Calum Brown
FEATURE: 79%
EXTRAS: 60%
OVERALL: 73%
2nd Opinion:
A wild, wacky mess of a movie with fantastic car chases and some excellent musical numbers. It's picked up quite a cult following and deservedly so. May be the best film in John Belushi's body of work.
Stewart McLaren
FEATURE: 81%
