After
the much ballyhooed and ill-fated 1989 John Belushi biopic Wired came
and went, the notion of a definitive take on the late comic genius remained to
be seen for years. While this new
documentary film aired on Showtime won’t necessarily bring finality to the man’s
life and legacy, it does bring some new conversations to the table in the form
of previously unaired interviews conducted with those close to his circle. What follows, simply named Belushi,
doesn’t really tell us anything we don’t already know but from writer-director
turned documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler, the film comes forth as a well
intentioned and loving tribute to the legendary comedian.
Utilizing
a mixture of pre-recorded interviews with Belushi and well-known segments from
his Saturday Night Live and movie stints, the film is intercut with newly rendered
black-and-white animated segments recreating the man as a caricature. While there are some video interviews here
and there with some of the parties involved, most of the recollections come
through audio recordings with the film cutting freely between animation and
live action footage and photographs of Belushi.
Criticisms of the star’s rise and fall range from unsurprised sympathy to
outright condemnation. Though the film
does indeed look upon the subject of Belushi’s meteoric rise and fall as tragic, it doesn’t pity
the man either and instead tries to honor what was left behind.
Anyone
familiar with the now infamous and still controversial Bob Woodward account of
Belushi’s final days, which served as the basis for Wired, won’t
necessarily learn anything they haven’t before other than candid anecdotes
passed around from those who knew him.
Including but not limited to Chevy Chase, Dan Ackroyd, Carrie Fisher and
Harold Ramis, all describe Belushi as a runaway train, immensely talented but
unstoppable from his self-destructive journey into hard drug addiction
ultimately leading to his untimely death.
And yet for what its worth, Belushi the film while it doesn’t
answer all the questions or alter anyone’s preconceived notions of the comic it
does however function as a tip of the hat to what he accomplished in the time
he lived and that is enough for now.
--Andrew Kotwicki
