Wired

Imagine for a moment, you are Judy Belushi, a grieving widow with a funny name. Your husband is John Belushi, one of the most talented and beloved actors of the 1970s. He died tragically in a drug overdose in a seedy motel, a speedball of heroin and cocaine in his system. Leaving your grief-stricken and alone.

All of the sudden, you meet Bob Woodward, the world-famous reporter who broke the Watergate scandal. He tells you that he wants to write a biography about your husband, showing his grand life and his tragic downfall. You of course agree, reasoning that the world deserves to know your husband's whole story. The good and the bad.

But when the book comes out, something goes terribly wrong. There's a whole lot of the bad, but virtually none of the good. The happier moments in your husband's life are either glossed over or woven into moments of piggish selfishness, and the bad moments are focused on with a heavy-duty microscope, exaggerated tenfold or outright fabricated.

Now you know the story of "Wired." A bizarre and confusing chapter in the book of Woodward, the only book he ever wrote that wasn't about politics. And that would be an unfortunate and tasteless enough end to this story were it not for this movie's production.

A mere year after publishing his hatchet job, Woodward was trying to auction off the film rights to his book, but no one wanted anything to do with it. Woodward eventually secured a low-budget studio's cooperation and production on this cinematic abortion began.

Even the gullible fans of Bob Woodward's Wired don't enjoy this film. What could have been a straight-forward Bio-Pic about the troubled life and times of a famous actor turns into a bizarre Three Stooges-style farce. Apparently the filmmakers decided that what a hard-hitting biopic about the raise and fall of a real person needed was comedic fantasy sequences of John Belushi's ghost traveling around with a wise-cracking Hispanic taxi driving guardian angel literally named "Angel."

The movie is a confused mess of bad ideas, poor execution and bad storytelling as the narrative goes back-and-forth between hammed up, exaggerated dramatizations of situations that vaguely resemble things that really happened, low-budget reenactments of legally safe bootleg versions of SNL sketches, and the insufferable "It's a Wonderful Life" subplot. The "Angel" character is one of the most unlikable characters in the whole film, spending his time either being Scrappy Doo levels of annoying and cracking bad jokes, or going on morally righteous tangents about how John Belushi ruined his life with drugs and is a piece of crap who deserves to die. He really is the heart and soul of this movie. The black, withered, shrunken heart and soul.

Woodward claimed Hollywood didn't want this movie made because it contained "too much truth." An assertion that becomes absurd once you actually watch the film. Even ignoring all of the ridiculous fictional elements, the "Real life" elements are just as out-of- touch with reality. People who were enablers and willing participants in Belushi's drug use become dotting parents who lecture him on the dangers of drugs, incidents that were totally innocuous are rewritten as bombastic pivotal disasters, and major moments in Belushi's life are either glossed over in seconds or totally ignored.

But by far the most insane and bizarre thing about this movie, even more bizarre than the inclusion of Angel the magic cab-driver and Ghost Belushi, is the inclusion of Bob Woodward himself as a character. Woodward, who served as a consultant on the film, is inexplicably featured in the story as a heroic protagonist unraveling the mystery of Belushi's untimely death. Watching this film would give you the impression Woodward was a brave hero everyone loved and Belushi was a mean junkie who everyone hated.

But getting angry at this film is pretty pointless, since it was a massive commercial and critical bomb. It's highly anticipated premier at Cannes ended in boos and a disastrous press conference and it's controversy and dubious quality ensured it never got a full home video release.

So is there anything redeemable about this film? Well, Michael Chiklis is great as Belushi. He looks like him, sounds like him and captures his attitude and behavior perfectly. Too bad this movie nearly ruined his career. At least him and Jim Belushi tearfully reconciled years later. Can Chiklis really be blamed for taking this part? This was his first real movie ever.

The story of Wired is far more interesting than Wired's story.This film is an interesting piece of film making history and an intriguing chapter in the life and times of Bob Woodward. But as an actual film? It's a real stinker. Don't even bother with it.

After seeing the DVD release of the Blues Brothers, and their mention of "Wired" on Belushi's bio, my boyfriend and I were hungry for more information on John Belushi. I had heard of "Wired" but didn't know too much about it and found it way in the back of the local rental store. I understand that Dan Akroyd was really p***ed over this movie and I thought it was because it didn't portray them in a good light. But that had nothing to do with it.

The movie starts out okay, until they wheel in John's body to the morgue. When he wakes up on the autopsy table, and decides to run for it, then begins the utter tastelessness of this movie. John is subjected to viewing his life and all of the turmoil he created with "Angel," a Puerto Rican cab driver with a wicked sense of humor -- subjecting him to criticism and attempting to try to get him to cross over.

The two actors who portray John and Dan look nothing even remotely close to the real actors, (let alone anyone else related for that matter, i.e., Lorne Michaels,) making it difficult to really try to concentrate on them and how they were in real life... but that is the tip of the iceberg.

I believe this was supposed to be an "artsy" film -- John constantly being tormented by drugs (i.e., the powdered soap in the bathroom being cocaine,) in such a way that was also difficult to follow. The flashbacks are choppy, also making it difficult to understand.

Probably the most tasteless scene was when John is (literally,) forced to undergo his autopsy and is in pain while they remove his heart to weigh it, saying that it was abnormally large due to drug use, obesity, yeah, we get the point without the grotesque portrayal.

There are very few other actors we know of in the movie, (where's Carrie Fisher for instance? They were incredibly close. And Jim Belushi would have been a great person to show,) it looks VERY cheaply made, (we felt it looked as if the graphics were from the early 80s or late 70s,) it felt as if it was filmed in about a week and all in all, didn't show the side to John at all. I felt I knew a little bit more about him from watching episodes of Saturday Night Live.

On one last note, Bob Woodward comes across narcissistic by placing himself in the movie, arguing with John about writing his life story. For someone who was supposed to be very highbrow, concerning the bust on Nixon, his calibur of person could match any writer in the National Enquirer, and therefore losing my interest in any of his work from this point forward.

SKIP THIS MOVIE. If you want to see more on John, watch his movies, see clips of Dan Akroyd talking about him or hope someone has the taste to make another movie on John that goes along the lines of "Man on the Moon," which is ultimately what we were expecting. I guess this was a "moral" kind of movie -- you know, don't do drugs, but I guess the creators of this film didn't understand that his death made a number of people (like Carrie Fisher,) stop doing drugs altogether for that reason.

Someone once said that John Belushi was a combination of Lou Costello and Vlad the Impaler! He wanted to grab the whole world and snort it. This was Michael Chiklis's first big part (he's now the rogue cop on The Shield). He does a convincing job bringing Belushi to life in all his madness. They do a good recreation of him and Dan Aykroyd doing their Blues Brothers routine. Did Belushi have a sub-conscious death wish? It would seem he did. Like the phantom cabbie tells him "Life is not for everyone". The whole "angel" thing is original but it does make the movie confusing and hard to follow. Belushi wanted it all but it was too much. Like Elvis, Belushi was a case of too much and too fast.

It just doesn't succeed. I didn't hate the movie like some did, I simply felt it should have concentrated more on Belushi's life then the whole afterlife fantasy nonsense. It had good moments here and there, especially the scene where Belushi and his wife are on the beach and he tells her he loves her, and the scenes involving Cathy Smith(played riveting by Patti D'arbanville)who was the women who gave drugs to Belushi the night he died. As far as Michael Chiklis performance goes he does try valiantly but comes short with portraying the comic energy that made John Belushi such a special comedian. Lucinda Jenny however is good as Belushi's wife. I'm surprised no one ever metioned her performance. She is one one the film's few virtues. Overall, though it comes up short in showing the true Belushi and really you what the filmmakers were thinking.

and I have seen a lot of films. I saw this in the theatre in 1989 and to this day I remember the sickening urge to walk out. If you like John Belushi, respect his talent, or even the sanctity of the cinema-- this film has nothing to offer you. It is mostly a pathetic showcase for the writer of Belushi's biography, Bob Woodward. As we see the progression of Belushi's life pass on the screen, Woodward actually shows up in the film like a ghost character. The most offensive scene occurs when Belushi is dying, looks up from his deathbed to see the author standing above him and he weakly utters "Breathe for me, Woodward." There are too many terrible things to mention them all, the least of which is the opening that has Belushi jumping out of his body bag in the morgue and getting into a taxi driven by a guy named "Angel." I'll leave it at that.