‘Belushi’ Review: R.J. Cutler’s Documentary Does Justice to the Ultimate Rock ‘n’ Roll Comedian

There’s a telling moment in “Belushi,” R.J.

Cutler’s meticulous and touching life-and-death-of-a-comedy-legend documentary, in which John Belushi, a rising star at Second City in Chicago, gets asked during a radio interview what he thinks of Lou Costello — who was, in the interviewer’s eyes, another genially wacked, roly-poly comedian.

Belushi, clearly annoyed, says: Nope, don’t like him.

Belushi then goes on to say that he’s not a comedian beholden to the past; he’s out to create something new.

That sounds like something a lot of comedians might say, but in Belushi’s case it really was true.

Even a live-wire original like Robin Williams saw Jonathan Winters as a god, and Belushi did have influences (including Winters and Bob Newhart).

But — his what-the-hell magnetism, and his compulsion to push everything he touched to extremes.It may sound like an evasion tactic when a documentary keeps

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