MOVIE REVIEW: The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980)

The Blues Brothers on IMDb

click here to read the plot summary 

This movie is an odd cross of many things, some of them delightful, others dissonant and tiresome. We are being introduced to the two main characters (apparently brothers indeed, and indeed named Blues), one of whom is being released from prison. And then the surreal, metaphorical and unreasonable break loose. The two gentlemen have to say hello to a quasi-maternal nun with superpowers - most notably, the power to close doors from afar, to float on the floor and project ominous shadows:

This persuades the junior of the black clad and sunglassed duo that they are on a mission from God, which is to gather tax money and save the mission they grew up in. Obviously, the way to go is getting the band back together and organizing an end-of-the-world blues and soul concert. 
And so we find ourselves in this church here -

...which contains a hysterical James Brown, and we bump into John Lee Hooker singing Boom Boom while arguing with some random fellow that yes, it IS him who wrote the song. Then we end up in Aretha Franklin's Soul Cafe, who fails to stop her husband from rejoining the band. Finally, we get to have Ray Charles prove to us that the old piano in his instrument shop is working perfectly.

In the meantime, we manage to annoy the police, a bunch of country-singers called The Good Old Boys, the Nazi faction in Chicago, and Princess Leia, who keeps popping up out of the blue to launch bombs and rockets our way. Not that explosions and crumbling buildings had any effect on us, other than making our black coats dusty, on a second thought quite an annoyance.

But before dodging all of these and getting our act together for the concert, we spend a quiet relaxing night in this cozy hotel room:

...which frankly seems to come straight from a Wong Kar-Wai movie. 

Next day, we do manage to complete our business, but not before a car chase through Chicago, between us and pretty much the whole police and army force in the area, trying to get to us in cars, boats, tanks, helicopters and possibly submarines.

 Yes, the movie is mad.
And prettier than I expected (as seen in the screen shots above), full of self-aware and often ridiculous cool, and bent on destroying its own universe; among other things we witness a car chase in a gigantic mall, with cars smashing, crashing and tearing through anything that isn't a concrete wall. So if you gather all your destructive glee and love for dark streets, soul, blues and carnivals, this movie should be Heaven. I could only muster affection for about half of these, but I thoroughly enjoyed them whenever they appeared in front of my eyes and ears.

Over all and apart from being a musical, the movie plays as a urban fairy tale, which is something I tend to love thoroughly. Although I'd probably place it at the bottom of my favourite urban fairy tales list, which would certainly contain Dick Tracy, In Bruges, Kitano's Kikujiro, Wong's Chungking Express, Cast a Deadly Spell, Brazil and Running Scared.