Very few rants get to become part of the foundation of a genre, but this one did. Bluto’s rant in “Animal House“ became a part of the cultural landscape in a way few others ever have.
A generation of movies set in high schools or colleges (or facsimiles thereof, reasonable or otherwise) took a cue from this: this is how you handle your transition from the second act’s climactic low point into the building action of the third act. You get someone to make a speech, which the audience will pretend is both funny and inspirational, and then cut to montage of assorted people doing odd things in preparation for some undisclosed goal.
Few of them have ever succeeded in being as funny or as inpirational as this:
John Belushi, in the role that marked his transition from television to film, was rarely this good again in his too-short career. His Bluto is refreshingly untethered by the facts (the Germans, after all, did not bomb Pearl Harbour) or anything resmbling a plan. It’s just a storm of emotion, from start to finish. Bluto has no idea what he’s going to do next – that isn’t the point of this. And no one in the room is more surprised than him when someone else takes him seriously.
All in all, a perfect rant.
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