Wired (1989)

For better or for worse, John Belushi's comedic career is oft times overshadowed by his life-ending excesses.

Too much booze, too many drugs, too many women...and from all the stories and legends circulating about life behind the scenes on TV's "Saturday Night Live", this was indicative of most of the first few seasons' cast and crew, leave alone Belushi. Pot and weed, cocaine and blow, alcohol and booze - it was all there, times two.

But shhh...they all deny it now: a decades-old chestnut like "SNL" has a standard it must uphold and in spite of its disheveled and scandalous past, its legacy lives on. Besides, surely none of that stuff goes on now. Surely.

As far as Belushi goes, having passed on in 1982 from a combined injection of cocaine and heroin, his own personal legend persists as a funny guy who overdid everything then died young. Too young...a philosophy that latter day "SNL" alumnus Chris Farley not only would have attested to but lived and died by.

This was only helped (if 'helped' can be the right word) by Robert Woodward's book "Wired", which purported to chronicle Belushi's tumultuous life, right up to his last hours. And with interviews from "eyewitnesses" and "people in the know", it not only threw fuel on the fire of Belushi's life of over-indulgences but helped "Wired" (the book) skyrocket to the top of the charts and end up on every well-read scandal-monger's coffee table.

Belushi's family and friends would protest the book's "facts", naturally, but whaddyagonnado?

Then...it happened.

Like with every big book that came before, talks went under way to turn "Wired" (the book) into a big-time movie. And in doing so, also chronicle John Belushi's existence and abuses on the big screen and in Technicolor.

And so came to be Wired, written by Earl Mac Rauch (who to his credit also wrote Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Fifth Dimension) from the best-selling book by Robert Woodward and directed by Larry Peerce (who to his DIS-credit directed every other lousy movie of the Seventies, plus a whole glut of TV movies).

Now wait a minute, I can hear you protest. If Wired was such a big deal and dealt with the life of John Belushi and is such a cultural stepping-stone, then why haven't I heard of it before NOW???

You're about to find out.

I shouldn't have to explain what the plot is again, but there is a marked difference between book and movie in this case. A very marked difference. I'll tell you what that is in a moment, but right now let's get to some of the fundamentals of why Wired failed harder than the 1980-81 season of "SNL".

First of all, there's the fact that this movie was released only seven years after Belushi's death! Seven! It's not like this hasn't happened before; I mean, a TV movie based on Freddie Prinze's life and death came out only TWO YEARS after Freddie's suicide!! But come on - if the book was sensationalism, then the movie is pure opportunism, seeing as it's cashing in on someone's death AND a popular book at the same time. That's two cash-ins at once! Even a movie based on Rudolph Valentino's life came out after Rudy was dead 41 years. It still bombed but at least they gave a respectable cushion between mourning and cash-in.

Next item: the role of John Belushi was handed to an unknown; an actor who had to deal with the fact that his first big role was in a movie where he would forever be haunted with comparisons and brow-beatings. That unknown was Michael Chiklis, who is now best known as The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies, Detective Mackey from TV's "The Shield" and The Commish from...well, "The Commish".

In Wired, however, Chiklis is saddled with not so much playing John Belushi but being someone who doesn't look like John Belushi imitating John Belushi in turn imitating Marlon Brando, Jake Blues and Joe Cocker. At no moment does Chiklis convince us he is a funny yet tortured soul. He's just Michael Chiklis imitating someone everyone knows...and doing it broadly and badly. That's okay at a dinner party, not so much in a major motion picture.

A third thing - and this is a biggie - is that "Wired" (the book) tells a story of an addicted man who just happened to be famous, gave details of his life - past and at the moment - and dropped names of many famous friends, comedians, fellow actors and so forth who watched Belushi slowly implode.

In Wired, however, the difference is that neither writer Raush or director Peerce could get any real or realistic details shoehorned in about Belushi's developmental years with all the other business they have going on (I'm getting to that, hold on...) and neither could they rate getting any of those same famous names in their dinky little money-maker. Instead, many characters stand in as composite characters who are "based on actual people". You know, like in those Bigfoot documentary movies where they have fake people standing in for the "eyewitnesses".

That kinda thing.

They couldn't even use any of the actual skits from "SNL" or re-enact any scenes from his movies - you know, rights and all...and I'm sure Lorne Michaels, Universal Pictures nor anyone else wanted to be part of a cheap-jack movie based on a contentious-at-best book. So they had to do Belushi's Samurai character in a baseball skit that never existed (and isn't even funny), suggest Jake and Elwood Blues doing a fake "SNL" intro and show Belushi in his trailer where The Blues Brothers was being filmed rather than any scenes therein.

In fact, the only real people who are actually represented are Belushi's best pal Dan Aykroyd (Gary Groomes), Cathy Smith (Patti D'Arbanville), Judy Belushi (Lucinda Jenney), John's coroner the night of his death - Thomas Noguchi (Clyde Kusatsu), John Landis (Jon Snyder) and, of course, Robert Woodward (J.T. Walsh). And of this group the one who comes closest to performing realistically is Groomes, who pretty much IS Dan Aykroyd in voice, mannerisms and attitude. At least Groomes gives us a glance as to what Wired could have been with a better cast.

And for as much as everyone tries (and D'Arbanville does a good job also), they are all saddled by one of the most stupid stupid STUPID artistic conceits ever employed on film since Wicked, Wicked split the screen in two to show both killer and victim's daily lives throughout the whole movie.

...get ready; this is the marked difference I was telling you about earlier...

Whereas "Wired" (the book) pretty much told its story in a straightforward manner, Wired starts with Belushi already dead, a la Hollywood Boulevard, and running like an idiot out of the morgue, where he is promptly picked up by a gypsy cab driver named Angel Velasquez (Ray Sharkey)....who is actually the Angel of Death, who takes Belushi on a trip back through his life while Woodward interviews people and digs up bits and pieces concerning Belushi's death.

Which Woodward feels might make a good book someday. I'm sure he didn't think it would be turned into this movie.

It even wraps up with Angel telling Belushi that he can live again...if he wins at a pinball game they come across. Three guesses as to whether Belushi wins. Not exactly The Seventh Seal territory here.

What a cheat - they even advertised this movie as a feel-good comedy, insisting it was a light-hearted look at a funny guy for whom "Every Night Was Saturday Night!" - HA! See that, Lorne Michaels? We said "Saturday Night"! HA! You can't sue us for saying "Saturday Night"; you ain't got no copyright on a night of the week, do ya??! HA!

And something else; for a movie that was supposed to show Belushi's addictions, it over-explained every aspect of why he did cocaine, took pills and guzzled booze - the pain of stardom, the loneliness, the fact that no one else understood him, the buzz of creativity which could only be attained with drugs, and so on. The fact of the matter was that John Belushi did drugs because he was addicted to them. He couldn't stop because his body told him to keep going. The more he had, the more he wanted, in spite of the fact that he was killing himself with it.

I'm probably the millionth person to quote this but as someone once stated, "What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like having some more cocaine".

So what happened with Wired? Was it doomed from the start? Pretty much; before its release, it was condemned big time by no less than Dan Aykroyd, widow Judy Belushi, brother Jim Belushi and many of John's past friends and acquaintances.

This more than guaranteed that in its opening weekend it earned $681,054.

On 745 screens.

And earned juuuuust over $1 million once all was said and done.

AND to date has still never made it to DVD. Oh, to be sure, if anyone ever tries, Dan Aykroyd and company will be waiting with sledgehammers for the first ones to roll off the conveyor belt.

Who can blame them, though. Wired is a film that should never have been. The people who made this movie didn't care about John Belushi. Not that Robert Woodward did either - he was just a reporter looking for a story like when he broke Watergate. But at least he followed through on a story. In "Wired" (the book) there were no Angels of Death driving cabs, overacting Belushi imitators, under-compensating supporting players, half-baked non-reenactments or stupid plot devices; Rauch, Peerce and Chiklis had that covered.

Wired is an example of a bad idea made worse by a lack of resources and poor plotting, culminating in something that even Belushi himself wouldn't be caught dead in.

Sorry.

Still for as tasteless as that was, it's probably the funniest thing ever associated with this movie.

Not to mention the most accurate thing.