Wired (film)

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Wired
Directed by	Larry Peerce
Produced by	Charles R. Meeker Edward S. Feldman
Written by	Bob Woodward (book Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi) Earl Mac Rauch (screenplay)
Starring	Michael Chiklis Ray Sharkey J.T. Walsh Patti D'Arbanville Lucinda Jenney Alex Rocco Gary Groomes Jere Burns
Music by	Basil Poledouris
Cinematography	Tony Imi
Editing by	Eric A. Sears
Distributed by	Taurus Entertainment Company
Release date(s)	August 25, 1989 (USA)
Running time	112 min.
Language	English
Budget	Unknown
Gross revenue	$1,089,000 (USA)
IMDb profile

Wired was a 1989 film biography of John Belushi directed by Larry Peerce, and adapted from the book Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi, which was written by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward and published in 1984. It starred Michael Chiklis (The Commish, The Shield, Fantastic Four) as Belushi. Wired was a critical and commercial failure.

The book was a best-seller but was criticized by many close to Belushi for its sensationalism, and the film adaptation does nothing to separate itself from the book's reputation. Like the book, the film was boycotted by several of Belushi's friends and family, including Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, and Belushi's widow, Judith Belushi Pisano.

The films makers were unable to obtain rights to the original Saturday Night Live skits that had made Belushi a star, and the film's screenwriters were forced to write imitations (e.g. "Samurai Baseball").

The movie was also criticised due to the addition of several fictional elements that were not present in the book, such as a guardian angel character, and the addition of Woodward himself (played by J.T. Walsh in the movie). These problems were also a factor in the movie being a disaster at the box office, aside from the boycott.

As of this writing, this film has never been released on DVD, and the videocassette (released by International Video Entertainment, now known as Lions Gate Home Entertainment and later re-released by Avid Home Entertainment) is out of print.

[edit] Critical reaction

Leonard Maltin condemned the movie as "the film fiasco of its year... mindnumbingly wrongheaded." Writing for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley dismissed the movie as "the silliest celebrity bio since Mommie Dearest" and "a biography without an ounce of soul or a shred of dignity. Billed as a fantasy-comedy-drama, it manages to be none of these. The drama is laughable, the comedy lame, the fantasy without wings."[1] Vincent Canby for the New York Times described the movie as "a bit fuzzy and off-center."[2] Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that the movie "is in some ways a sincere attempt to deal with the material, but it is such an ungainly and hapless movie, so stupidly written, so awkwardly directed and acted, that it never gets off the ground." He also criticised the movie's lack of authenticity: "There should be, at some point in a movie like this, a moment when we have the illusion that we are seeing the real John Belushi...That moment never comes. I always was aware that an actor (Michael Chiklis) was before me on the screen, and that Wired was an ungainly fictional construction. The saddest moments were the ones in which Chiklis attempted to re-create some of Belushi's famous characters and routines. He never gives us a living Belushi, and so why should we care about the movie's dead Belushi?"[3] Rolling Stone labelled the movie "a howling dog...Whether by design or by forced compromise, Wired is even more of a gloss than the candy-assed view of Jerry Lee Lewis in Great Balls of Fire!. Far from pointing any fingers, Wired the movie hardly names names...it appears that nearly everyone Belushi encountered in big, bad Hollywood tried to warn him off demon drugs. Wired packs all the investigative wallop of a Care Bears flick."[4]

[edit] Trivia

Michael Chiklis won the role after being chosen over 200 other actors. Despite all the problems associated with the film, he received critical acclaim for his performance.

The Blues Brothers never performed "634-5789" in concert as they do in this movie; however, Eddie Floyd performed the song in the movie Blues Brothers 2000 (1998).

In the scene where John Landis is walking across the set from The Blues Brothers, a helicopter can be heard in the background (a reference to the helicoper accident which occurred when Landis filmed Twilight Zone: The Movie).

The producers had problems finding a distributor for the film, as many of the major studios refuse to distribute the film. Several independent studios such as New Horizons backed away from it. Atlantic Entertainment was about to distribute it, but financial problems prevented that from happening, so Taurus Entertainment agreed to distribute the film.

Two years after the release of the film, Belushi's widow, Judith Belushi Pisano, wrote her first book (Samurai Widow, 1991) to counter the image of her late husband portrayed in the original book and this adaptation.