The Blues Brothers
"Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi) is released from prison after serving three years for armed robbery. Jake is at first irritated at being picked up by his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) in a battered former police car, instead of the Cadillac the brothers used to own, but Elwood explains the car's advantages. The brothers visit their childhood home, a Catholic orphanage. They learn the institution will be closed unless $5,000 in property tax is collected. Jake indicates they can quickly obtain the funds, but the orphanage director refuses to accept any stolen money. The brothers visit an evangelical church service where Jake has an epiphany: they can legitimately raise the funds by re-forming their rhythm and blues band.
Elwood's running a "yellow" light is noticed by two Illinois State Police troopers, and after pulling him over and using their electronic database, the troopers learn of his suspended license. When they attempt to arrest Elwood, he speeds off, leading a high-speed chase through the Dixie Square Mall. Arriving at Elwood's home in a rundown flophouse, the brothers are subjected to a bazooka attack launched by a mystery woman, but they are unharmed. The next morning, she detonates a bomb that demolishes the building, which inadvertently saves the brothers from another arrest. The two emerge from the rubble unscathed and simply leave as if nothing had happened.
Jake and Elwood begin tracking down members of the band. Trombonist Tom "Bones" Malone and the rhythm section of the group (Willie "Too Big" Hall, Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, and Murphy "Murph" Dunne) are playing in an empty Holiday Inn lounge, and are convinced to rejoin. Trumpeter "Mr. Fabulous", now maître d' at a French restaurant, is harder to sway, but Jake and Elwood force him by behaving like boorish slobs, insulting the patrons in his restaurant and promising to continue doing so every day.
En route to meet saxophonist Louis "Blue Lou" Marini and guitarist Matt "Guitar" Murphy, the brothers drive through a neo-Nazi rally of "the Illinois Nazis", forcing the marchers off a bridge into Jackson Park lagoon and adding another enemy to the brothers' rapidly-growing list. Marini and Murphy are at the soul food restaurant which Murphy owns with his wife (played by Aretha Franklin). Against her protests, the two musicians leave and rejoin the band. The reunited group uses an IOU to obtain instruments and equipment from a pawn shop whose owner is played by Ray Charles.
Jake is unable to book a gig in advance, so instead he cons his way into a gig at Bob's Country Bunker (a country and western bar) by pretending to be the country band scheduled to play that night. After a rocky start, the band wins over the rowdy, bottle-hurling crowd by playing the theme to the TV show Rawhide. At the end of the evening, however, not only is their bar tab greater than the pay for the gig, but the brothers infuriate the band that was actually meant to play, the Good Ol' Boys. They manage to skip out on their bar tab and escape via more trickery on the part of Jake.
The brothers blackmail a booking agent into securing a gig for them—a performance at the Palace Hotel Ballroom, located over 100 miles north of Chicago. After being driven all over the area promoting the concert, their car runs out of gas, making Jake and Elwood late for the concert. The ballroom is packed, and the concert-goers are joined by the Good Ol' Boys and scores of police officers. Jake and Elwood sneak into the venue and perform two songs. A record company executive offers them a cash advance on a recording contract, more than enough to cover the orphanage's property taxes and the cost of the band's instruments, and tells the brothers how to slip out unnoticed.
As the brothers escape via a service tunnel, they are confronted by the mystery woman, whereupon it is revealed she is Jake's ex-fiancée. Since Jake had abandoned her before the altar, she threatens to kill them both, but Jake manipulates her with his charm, kisses her and then drops her into the muck, allowing the two brothers to escape to their now-refueled car. They race back to Chicago at high speed with scores of state and local police, the Illinois Nazis, and the Good Ol' Boys in pursuit. Jake and Elwood eventually elude them all, leaving chaos and wrecked police cars en masse in their wake.
After a harrowing chase through Chicago, pursued by what appears to be every patrol car in the city, Jake and Elwood arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, where their car literally falls to pieces. They rush inside, soon followed by hundreds of Chicago police, state troopers, SWAT teams, firefighters, Illinois National Guardsmen, and the Military Police. Finding the office of the Cook County Assessor, the brothers pay the tax bill. Just as their receipt is stamped, they are cuffed and arrested by a massive crowd of armed law officers. Jake, now joined by Elwood and the rest of the band, are sent to prison where they play "Jailhouse Rock" for fellow inmates.
