If I were teaching a course on how to write a screenplay, I would show this and have the class figure out what is wrong with it. The cast is excellent. It took me seconds for me to believe Michael Chiklis could play the John Belushi portrayed in the story. I still never saw J. T. Walsh do a bad performance in anything and that includes his portrayal of Bob Woodward. Ray Sharkey does what he can with one of the most bizarre roles I have ever seen in what is supposed to be a biographical film and that leads me back to what wrecked this movie, the script.
The movie tries to blend a. The flavor of an SNL skit b. Scrooge type of life exploration (led by Ray Sharkey's character Angel Velasquez) c. Bob Woodward researching the biography of Belushi and his interviews to determine if there is more behind Belushi's death than just an overdose. I did read that book years before seeing this movie. The book itself succeeds at broadening the focus to drugs in Hollywood with Belushi as the main subject. The convoluted script doesn't manage to make that point and the result is the movie can't even explore Belushi's life well. How can a biopic fail so miserably?
First we will look at a. The SNL skit type stuff. Some skits feel exactly like the old show's material. There being there doesn't serve much purpose in terms of story. One scene seems to sit next to the other and it's incidential. Together, they don't add to a point being made in the film. The movie opens with Belushi wheeled into the morgue and he makes his debut as though he is alive and was wheeled into the morgue by mistake like it's a comedy skit. In terror, he flees and gets a cab driven by Angel Velasquez (b.) Then it jumps to Bob Woodward deciding to do an investigation into Belushi's death (c.). It bounces around from a to b to c to b to c then a and c meet, settles on b and ends with a. It goes all over the place like a ping pong ball. I wonder if the inclusion of a Blues Brothers ping pong machine toward the end was an inside joke for the script. It tries to have a beginning, middle and end but they crammed it all together and it vaguely is chronological when JT Walsh as Woodward goes around interviewing the people that knew Belushi. It makes sense that those scenes ground the movie in that way since the movie is based on his book. Does the bouncing around from a cross country drive, to a film set years later, to an interview years later unrelated to what was just shown help the audience tell the story or make it entertaining? No.....
The movie is worth seeing for Michael Chiklis and his portrayal of John Belushi. He is a phenomenal talent and it was apparent as early as this movie. Other performances are very well done too. If you can handle the script bouncing around, and an ultra low budget look, you will like it for their work.
The movie tries to blend a. The flavor of an SNL skit b. Scrooge type of life exploration (led by Ray Sharkey's character Angel Velasquez) c. Bob Woodward researching the biography of Belushi and his interviews to determine if there is more behind Belushi's death than just an overdose. I did read that book years before seeing this movie. The book itself succeeds at broadening the focus to drugs in Hollywood with Belushi as the main subject. The convoluted script doesn't manage to make that point and the result is the movie can't even explore Belushi's life well. How can a biopic fail so miserably?
First we will look at a. The SNL skit type stuff. Some skits feel exactly like the old show's material. There being there doesn't serve much purpose in terms of story. One scene seems to sit next to the other and it's incidential. Together, they don't add to a point being made in the film. The movie opens with Belushi wheeled into the morgue and he makes his debut as though he is alive and was wheeled into the morgue by mistake like it's a comedy skit. In terror, he flees and gets a cab driven by Angel Velasquez (b.) Then it jumps to Bob Woodward deciding to do an investigation into Belushi's death (c.). It bounces around from a to b to c to b to c then a and c meet, settles on b and ends with a. It goes all over the place like a ping pong ball. I wonder if the inclusion of a Blues Brothers ping pong machine toward the end was an inside joke for the script. It tries to have a beginning, middle and end but they crammed it all together and it vaguely is chronological when JT Walsh as Woodward goes around interviewing the people that knew Belushi. It makes sense that those scenes ground the movie in that way since the movie is based on his book. Does the bouncing around from a cross country drive, to a film set years later, to an interview years later unrelated to what was just shown help the audience tell the story or make it entertaining? No.....
The movie is worth seeing for Michael Chiklis and his portrayal of John Belushi. He is a phenomenal talent and it was apparent as early as this movie. Other performances are very well done too. If you can handle the script bouncing around, and an ultra low budget look, you will like it for their work.