Brandon at Random Reviews

I’ve seen this movie a few times and every time I’ve watched it I get a little more bummed that we didn’t get to see more John Belushi. He was great. This movie is a special kind of flick. Between the comedy, the musical numbers, the car chases, and all the other cool shit, we really get something great here.

Jake Blues (Belushi) starts off by getting out of prison and getting picked up by his blood brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd). They then find out at the Roman Catholic orphanage where they were raised that they have to somehow raise $5000 to save it, so they go on “A Mission From God” to get the money. As I mentioned, there are a lot of great musical numbers and comedy bits along the way. One of my favorites is at the orphanage when the two brothers keep having a nun hit them with a yard stick for swearing and taking the lord’s name in vain. It’s great.

There are some major car chases in this movie, they are so crazy that I’d be legitimately surprised if no one was seriously hurt in the production. I also found out Dan Aykroyd and Carrie Fisher were engaged during production, which gives me hope that maybe a guy like me could have a chance with a peak-Carrie Fisher type girl if I played my cards right. Feels good, man.

This movie has a lot of charm and overall likability, you don’t see that in many movies these days. Of course, you really don’t see movies like this at all these days unless you count 1998’s shit show sequel “Blues Brothers 2000”, which I don’t at all because fuck that movie that not even Jim Belushi would participate in. But this one, the original, is something exceptional. I really like it.

I would say definitely check it out if you’ve never seen it. The only thing I have to say against it is that despite liking the music, I don’t generally care for the “everybody breaks out into song for 5 minutes” aspect like in standard musicals, although it is more digestible here. I’ve seen it enough times and watched through the songs enough that I’m like, if I want to listen to this song, I’ll find it on Spotify and play it when I’m not watching a flick. So this time around I, gasp, fast forwarded the musical numbers because they weren’t doing shit for me. So if you’re like me, don’t hesitate to do the same. Otherwise, this is a comedy classic. Watch it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2