Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
The brothers lean that thier old orphanage will be closed and sold within days unless the propety tax is paid and quickly. So they decide to put their blues band back together and start their mission from god which seems to make more enemies than friends. Will they come up with the money in time. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 01/17/2006 Starring: John Belushi Dan Aykroyd Run time: 133 minutes

Amazon.com:
After building up the duo's popularity through popular recordings and several performances on Saturday Night Live, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd--as "legendary" Chicago blues brothers Jake and Elwood Blues--took their act to the big screen in this action-packed hit from 1980. As Jake and Elwood struggle to reunite their old band and save the Chicago orphanage where they were raised, they wreak enough good-natured havoc to attract the entire Cook County police force. The result is a big-budget stunt-fest on a scale rarely attempted before or since, including extended car chases that result in the wanton destruction of shopping malls and more police cars than you can count. Along the way there's plenty of music to punctuate the action, including performances by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, and James Brown that are guaranteed to knock you out. As played with deadpan wit by Belushi and Aykroyd, the Blues Brothers are "on a mission from God," and that gives them a kind of reckless glee that keeps the movie from losing its comedic appeal. Otherwise this might have been just a bloated marathon of mayhem that quickly wears out its welcome (which is how some critics described this film and its 1998 sequel). Keep an eye out for Steven Spielberg as the city clerk who stamps some crucial paperwork near the end of the film. --Jeff Shannon

Rating : - classic comedy
When Jake and Elwood Blues are reunited after Jake's stint in Joliet, Jake finds that the beloved Bluesmobile has been replaced by a former City of Mount Prospect police car, and the Blues Brothers Band has been disbanded.

They visit "the penguin," the nun who runs the orphanage where they grew up, only to find that the orphanage will be shut down unless they come up with $5000 in back taxes. Since she vetoes any suggestion of ill-gotten gains, Jake comes up with a plan: put the band back together.

From then on it's non-stop action, laughs, and music, as they're "on a mission from God" to collect the former band members one by one, equip them, then try to get enough gigs to earn the money. Along the way, they also collect quite a trail of people out to get them: a mystery woman armed with everything from a bazooka to a flamethrower, Illinois Nazis, a country-western band, as well as the cops.

Star-studded doesn't begin to cover the casting, either. It's practically a who's who of rhythm and blues, as well as immediately recognizable actors. Check the IMDB for the list.

As with Blazing Saddles, the humor is hilarious without being pointless. Maybe I'm showing my age, but my sons agreed, and it's something we've discussed about other movies as well. In this case, nobody's safe from being skewered by humor, and everything's a target: relationships, crime, racism, poverty, country music, etc., etc. It's no surprise that The Blues Brothers' roots are in the original irreverent TV show (SNL).

Anyway, it's a classic that I never get tired of, and I'm not a very patient person when it comes to re-watching movies, so that's saying something. Plus, it's fun to send the boys off to school in the morning with "remember, you're on a mission from God." (Okay, maybe that's just fun for me.)