J.J.Abrams is now so important that if he, Joss Whedon, and Chris Hardwick died in a plane crash, the entire pop-culture world would need to take months off to regroup. But decades before Abrams was given control of both the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, he was just a young screenwriter who, in his first produced screenplay, was entrusted with another essential pop-culture institution: James Belushi.
With the 1990 film Taking Care Of Business, Abrams, writing partner Jill Mazurksky (Paul’s daughter), and director Arthur Hiller translated Belushi’s persona onto the big screen in the purest form. A core component of the Belushiverse alongside other sacred texts like Mr. Destiny, K-9, Red Heat, and seasons three through five of According To Jim. Taking Care Of Business essentially treats Belushi as a human version of 1980s beer pitchman Spuds MacKenzie, the “original party animal” whose leering, T&A-filled commercials, with their creepy intimations of inter-species sex, made him the alcohol pitchman kids of my generation adored. In fact, Taking Care Of Business could have swapped Spuds MacKenzie in for Jim Belushi without changing the details much. It’s easy to imagine a sunglasses-wearing Spuds “surfing” on top of a fancy sports car in a chi-chi neighborhood, while an apoplectic Charles Grodin rages inside the car, as James Belushi (or “The Belush,” as he will subsequently be called) does in the film’s poster.
It should be noted, however, that Belushi never actually gets on top of a moving car in Taking Care Of Business. So if you’re looking for a film about car-surfing, this is not for you—although The Belush’s character is such a crazy, go-for-broke party animal—he is to humanity what Michaelangelo is to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—that he seems like the kind of guy who would go car-surfing. The poster image reflects his wild, take-no-prisoners approach to life, so while it is is not technically accurate, it seems attitudinally correct.
The Belush stars in Taking Care Of Business as Jimmy, a lovable scamp doing time in a minimum-security prison for car theft. He’s such a universally beloved, righteous dude that he clearly only could have stolen cars that on some existential level, wanted to be stolen. Jimmy is balding, but he has such a cool ponytail that it’s hard even to notice his receding hairline, particularly when distracted by his rockin’ shades and Cubs cap.
Jimmy likes scoping the bikini babes, kicking back with a cold one, and rocking out to tunes from the likes of Bachman-Turner Overdrive and The Steve Miller Band. But what he really loves are the Chicago Cubs (just like the Belush himself!). So when his beloved Cubbies make it to the World Series, Jimmy gets his fellow inmates to take over the prison, pretend to take him hostage, and demand the right to watch the World Series, all as an elaborate pretext to help Jimmy escape prison and go to the big game.
After busting out of the big house, Jimmy finds the Filofax (that’s like a Rolodex, for you young people) of Spencer Barnes (Grodin), an uptight businessman who inhabits a fancy-pants world of rigid schedules and business meetings where women in power suits say things like, “The bottom line, after all, is money.” He’s got a big business meeting in L.A., and a planned pitch to powerful Japanese businessman Mr. Sakamoto (Mako). But after Jimmy finds the Filofax, he sweeps into Spencer’s life and begins enjoying its rewards: a massive mansion where he can stay for the weekend, a fully stocked bar, and a pool.
Taking Care Of Business is fascinating to watch in 2014, because it presupposes a level of Belushi affection that now seems insane. The film assumes audiences can’t wait to see the Belush do his Belush thing, and they just need to put the camera on him and wait for the magic to happen. It’s almost possible to see the huge, inviting space for ad-libbing and improvisation in each scene, and the slow deflation as The Belush invariably lurches for the most obvious conceivable option.
Jimmy is a PG-13 kind of guy in a PG world, and at fancy-pants business meetings run by uptight business women (boo! hiss!) he scandalizes his peers with his signature toast, “Here’s to the Cubs winning the World Series! And big tits!” But ultimately, these uptight fuddy-duddies appreciate Jimmy’s working-class quasi-charm, eagerness to insult both them and their product, and habit of complimenting female peers on their breasts.
Meanwhile, Spencer winds up on the fringes of society once he loses his precious Filofax. In the kind of sequence that was ubiquitous in the 1980s and early 1990s, before anyone realized racism is wrong, Spencer asks some black people in a dodgy neighborhood for directions, and is subsequently tossed headfirst into a Dumpster by the kind of urban ruffians who listen to rap music, and dance, and also are black.
Having traded places, this odd couple ultimately joins forces to save Spencer’s career, get Jimmy to the World Series, and smuggle Jimmy back into prison before the prison guards realize that he was ever gone. They do that by dressing Jimmy in drag, then sending him back into the prison as his mother. What does Jimmy Belushi look like in old-lady drag? Pretty much exactly like Mrs. Doubtfire.
Will fans of Star Wars and Star Trek like Taking Care Of Business? Assuming they’re also superfans of James Belushi, how could they not? Taking Care Of Business is The Belush in pure cinematic form: raw, uncut, and ready to party with a sixer of Bud Light, Ray-Bans, and Hooters waitresses. It was the beginning of J.J.Abrams’ Saga, his A New Hope, as it were. If in the next Star Wars movie, Han Solo toasts, “Here’s to the rebels’ triumph over the Empire! And big tits!” we’ll know that while The Force is strong in Abrams, The Belush is stronger.