[ MAUKA-MAKAI ]
"Lost In Las Vegas" starts out like many other "this is how the entertainment business really is" documentaries. Wayne Catania and Kieran Lafferty are celebrity impersonators whose Blues Brothers act -- based on characters created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd -- is good enough to have earned them an invitation to audition for a Las Vegas production. Documentary explodes
"Lost in Las Vegas"
Vegas glamour while
telling riveting stories
Airs at 9 tonight on A&E
Review by John Berger
Star-BulletinBy the time the final credits roll, producers David Ostriker and Paul Jay make several statements about corporate show business, family and the desire to be creative, all while sharing a fascinating story.
Catania got into playing Belushi because of his physical resemblance to the late comedian. Lafferty does Aykroyd because he can and, he says, because he and Aykroyd are both Canadians who play the harmonica and love the blues. Both men have been making music since high school and consider themselves serious musicians. Both are aware they can make way more money impersonating Blues Brothers Jake and Elwood than they ever can with their own music.
Their arrival in Vegas is marked by basic documentary scenes establishing a sense of place and the camaraderie among "Legends in Concert" performers. There are conversations with "Legends" producer John Stuart, a party at Stuart's ranch and enough performance segments to establish the feel of a "Legends" show.
Steve McCoy (Tom Jones), Graham Patrick (Elvis), Sherie Rae Parker (Bette Midler) and Hawaii's Garry Moore (Little Richard) all do great work. Moore is also seen doing a dead-on verbal impression of James Brown, and stars in an important dream sequence in which he preaches as Little Richard while Catania and Lafferty perform as the Blues Brothers in church.
Moore also talks about his life offstage. So does McCoy; he entered a Tom Jones look-alike contest as a joke and won it with Jones as one of the judges.
The story moves outside the basic show-biz concept as Catania and Lafferty explore Las Vegas from the Strip to back-street blues bars and strip clubs. What will the impact be on their families if they get the job? Almost everyone tells them Vegas is a bad place to raise a family.
Catania and Lafferty wrestle with the issue while preparing for the two performances that will determine whether they get the big-bucks job.
The movie will thrill those who want to keep gambling illegal in Hawaii. Catania and Lafferty meet a sociologist, a historian and a group of African-American activists, all of whom speak frankly about the social and economic problems hidden behind the glamorous facade of the Strip. Some say things have gotten worse since international corporations replaced the goodfellas who established Vegas as a gambling mecca in the late '40s.
Entertainment is a commodity in Vegas, and acts are interchangeable in "Legends" -- "We change for change's sake," Stuart says.
Where does that leave Catania and Lafferty? Well, Stuart may not be all-powerful in deciding their fate, but it seems neither he nor the hotel wants to come off as the villain in a movie about two guys with dreams and families to support. Will that improve the odds that Catania and Lafferty will get the gig? If so, what happens when the filming stops?
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