Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Belushi’ on Showtime, a Documentary Portrait of a Comedy Superhero and a Complex Man

Belushi: three syllables that summon a singular off-the-rails hilarious gonzo madness, burning bright and hot and brief. But Belushi, director R.J. Cutler’s John Belushi biodoc for Showtime, strikes a different tone, capturing the sensitive man behind “To-ga! To-ga! To-ga!” and Samurai Futaba. The veteran filmmaker pieces together the Belushi story by unearthing old audio interviews with many of the comedian’s family, friends and colleagues, and shockingly personal letters to his wife, Judy. It might be the most intimate portrait of the superstar funnyman yet.

BELUSHI: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Gales of laughter from behind the camera punctuate Belushi’s original Saturday Night Live screen test. Was he one of the funniest people who ever lived? Quite possibly. This story of the movie, TV and rock star features no narrator, just archival footage, audio interviews conducted by author Tanner Colby and the occasional reading of Belushi’s letters by Bill Hader, who does a crazy-accurate vocal impression of the man (so accurate, you might be fooled for a minute like I was). We hear the voices of Judy Belushi, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd — the man’s closest friend and confidant — Carrie Fisher, Lorne Michaels, Penny Marshall, Jim Belushi and many others, who describe the comedian in glowing terms. But, not surprisingly, their piecemeal portrait of the private man is far more fraught and complicated.

Animated sequences illustrate scenes for which there apparently isn’t any video documentation. We also see still images, e.g., of Belushi the boy, growing up in Wheaton, Illinois, funny right out of the womb, it seems; as a three-year-old, he’d walk right into his neighbors’ homes and “put on a show.” As a teen, he played in a rock band and listened endlessly to his comedy records. In the late 1960s, he moved to Chicago, where he started his own comedy troupe and participated in the city’s countercultural movement; he was recruited for his dream gig with The Second City improv group, then graduated to New York City, performing in the National Lampoon stage production Lemmings, where he debuted his famous, riotous Joe Cocker impression.

And then came SNL. He was one of the original cast of seven, and by its second season, he was the show’s money performer. He debuted the Blues Brothers musical-comedy act with Aykroyd and filmed classic yukfest Animal House, and by his 30th birthday in 1979, he was the point-blank star of the No. 1 album, TV show and movie in America. But Belushi was “heroic at his consumption,” Ramis says — cocaine had become a mainstay in Belushi’s life. “John didn’t have a limit,” his Blues Brothers movie co-star Fisher says. You know how this ends. Tragically.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: ESPN’s 30 for 30 doc on Bruce Lee, Be Water, similarly foregoes the usual talking-heads-and-narrator route of profiling a superstar who was taken from us far, far too soon. Notably, Belushi is sure to be better received than the perennially unavailable, scripted biopic Wired, which used writer Bob Woodward’s biography as its basis and starred then-newcomer Michael Chiklis — and was denounced by Belushi’s family and friends, and critically trashed upon its release in 1989.

Performance Worth Watching: Few have a greatest-hits clip like Belushi: “Cheeseburger cheeseburger,” “FOOD FIGHT!”, “I owe it all to little chocolate doughnuts,” “But NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O,” the samurai, Cocker contorting himself on stage, Joliet Jake (and the car chase!), Liz Taylor,

Memorable Dialogue: Belushi: “I’d rather be an anarchist than a professional.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Belushi’s only failure isn’t devoting at least 45 minutes to Neighbors, his grossly misunderstood, wondrously offbeat black comedy that’s a sub-sub-cult classic — at least in my basement, anyway. It would be his final performance, and is noted in the documentary for its troubled production: He and Akyroyd swapped roles at the last minute so they could play against type as the wild man and straight man; they clashed with director John G. Avildsen; and after a period of sobriety, Belushi relapsed so severely, crew members had to physically hold him up on set. The movie wasn’t a bomb, nor was it a hit, but it was lambasted by critics, who completely failed to notice that it’s f—ing PRICELESS, and one of the weirdest mainstream comedies ever made. And also very, very bittersweet.

ANYway. Belushi is profoundly sad, less a celebration of its subject than a lamentation. It’s difficult to see and hear Belushi’s own bald-faced and anguished quasi-psychotherapeutic confessionals in his letters to Judy, which frame the documentary as a real heartbreaker. Hearing two-decade-old from-the-grave interviews with Ramis, Marshall and Fisher, and seeing classic SNL footage of Belushi with the late Gilda Radner only adds to the gone-too-soon melancholy vibe. (Also upsetting? Learning that Belushi would’ve ended up in Ghostbusters.)

But there’s a compelling undercurrent to Belushi that helps flesh out the man and his character a little bit beyond what we already know; the doc can be a little thematically scattered, but nonetheless fascinating. I loved hearing Aykroyd’s insight into Belushi’s Animal House Bluto character as being a blend of Harpo Marx and Cookie Monster. The film digs a little bit into his late-in-life fascination with punk rock, including a clip of him playing drums for the Dead Boys. Cutler glosses over, but at least mentions some of Belushi’s less admirable traits, especially his insistence that women weren’t funny, and includes SNL co-star Jane Curtin’s testimony that he frequently badmouthed sketches by female writers.

The doc’s most probing insight comes from Fisher, who gives an addict’s perspective to the narrative, and Cutler draws a parallel between the disease of addiction and the insatiable qualities of the American Dream — and it’s this type of insight that renders Belushi close to essential viewing. Maybe Cutler could have done more of this type of thing, but as it stands, it’s a strong bio of a complicated man and comedy superhero.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Belushi isn’t quite authoritative in its rise-and-fall portrait of a live-fast/die-hard showbiz icon, but it’s nonetheless engrossing and a must-see for any fan of SNL, Animal House and 20th-century comedy in general.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

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