Blues Brothers 2000 movie review (1998)

There's an article by Jonathan Eig in the Feb. 9 issue of the New Republic that explains ''how the Blues Brothers destroyed the Windy City's musical heritage.'' It opens in a smoky dive on the South Side where the true blues still live, and then sniffs at the North Side clubs where suburbanites pay $8 entry fees to hear tarted-up and smoothed-down blues.

But surely it has always been thus? The true blues come from, and flourish in, a milieu of hard times--hard emotionally, economically, racially, and not infrequently in lifestyle and substance abuse choices. Move the music to an affluent paying audience, contract the musicians to two shows a night, mix in some soul and R&B to lighten the blues' heavy load, and that's entertainment. The notion that a professional blues musician can be ''authentic'' on demand (i.e., depressed, angry, bereft and forlorn) is amusing. It's like they say in the theater: The most important thing is sincerity, and if you can fake that, you've got it made.

What the Blues Brothers do is worse than Eig's complaint about the posh blues clubs. They take a musical tradition and dine out on it, throwing scraps to the real pros. If Junior Wells, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, B.B. King and James Brown want to sing in a Hollywood musical, they've got to be supporting characters for the Blues Brothers.

I don't suggest that Aykroyd and Belushi, in the 1970s, were not providing entertaining musical performances. I do suggest that the Blues Brothers schtick has outlived its usefulness. Watching ''Blues Brothers 2000,'' I found I had lost all interest in the orphanage, orphans, police cars, nuns and mentoring. I wanted more music.

It's said that the climactic sequence of ''BB2000,'' a talent contest with many legendary musicians (even an ill-at-ease Eric Clapton), was a legendary jam session. No doubt. I'd love to see it as a concert film. With no chase scenes and no little kids. And really shot in Chicago. Or New Orleans would be OK. Not Toronto. I've heard Toronto called a lot of things, but not the home of the blues.

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