Ahhhh, Twist It!! (The Blues Brothers (DVD))

Member Name: RussSenior

Product:	The Blues Brothers (DVD)
Date:	31/07/01 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny, Good Soundtrack, Good Acting

Disadvantages: Kinda Cheesy, Bad editing, none!

This has to be one of my favourite films of all time. It’s a big, raucous powerhouse movie that proves against all odds that if you’re loud enough, vulgar enough and have enough raw energy you can make a steamroller into a musical.

Filmed in 1979, this is a weird film. It stars John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd as the Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood. The film tells something of their backgrounds: They were reared in a West Side orphanage, learned the blues, and, as the movie opens, have teamed up again after Jake’s release from prison.

It has a simple plot. The brothers visit their old orphanage, learn that its future is in the balance because of $5000 due back in taxes, and determine to raise the money by getting their old band back together and putting on a show. They find their old friends at unlikely places, like a restaurant run by Aretha Franklin, a music shop run by Ray Charles, and a gospel church were the preacher is James Brown. Their adventures include run-ins with suburban cops, good ol’ boys, and Nazis who are trying to stage a demonstration.

Aretha Franklin occupies one of the movie’s best scenes, in her South Side soul food restaurant. Cab Calloway, as a sort of road manager for the Blues Brothers, struts through a wonderful old-style production of Minnie the Moocher. The Blues Brothers themselves star in several improbable numbers; the funniest has the band playing in a country and western bar where wire mesh has been installed to protect the band from beer bottles thrown by the customers.

This whole movie is a chase, with Jake and Elwood piloting a used police car that seems, as it hurtles across suspension bridges, to have a life of its own. There are incredible, sensational chase sequences under the elevated train tracks, on overpasses, in subway tunnels under the Loop, and literally through a shopping mall. One crash in particular, a pileup involving maybe a dozen or more pol
ice cars has to be seen to be believed.

This film is guaranteed to make you tap your feet, laugh out loud, gasp as both a mall and an entire fleet of Chicago police cars are destroyed, and believe in the magical powers of an old cop car. It’s a truly brilliant film, and everybody should have the opportunity to watch it at least once.

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