Clint Eastwood’s “Jersey Boys” is a handsome looking movie.
As with “J Edgar,” Eastwood and his cinematographer Tom Stern shoot this one in
mostly low light giving the entire picture a noir-ish look that also punctuates
James M Murakami’s production design, making the period décor—the movie spans
from the 1950’s to the 1990’s—pop off the screen.
Based on the hit Broadway musical, “Jersey Boys” recounts
the story of the music group Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, from their
origins in a tough New Jersey neighborhood, to their fame and finally to
Valli’s solo career. Unfortunately, the production design is the only thing
that really pops as the movie—despite featuring some great music—suffers from a
narrative that gets increasingly less interesting and more cliché, and from a
general lack of energy. Even the musical performances failed to resonate in my
mind as I type this review.
That being said the film gets off to a pretty great start.
When we first meet the Four Seasons they’re just a bunch of young Jersey hoods
getting into trouble, going nowhere, and in their own words “busting each
others’ balls.” There’s the bandleader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), the
biggest troublemaker of the group, the bassist Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda, who
does fine but for the life of me I can’t remember anything else about the
character’s personality) and of course Mr. Valli himself (played by John Lloyd
Young), the shyest member of the group but also the one with the voice that
would catapult the band to fame. There’s also Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), the songwriter
of the foursome who joins a little later.
This is the only section of the movie that has any kind of
energy in it. Watching the four of them mess around with one another,
bullshitting, spouting New Jersey slang as they play nightclubs and try to stay
out of trouble—usually failing to do so—is intoxicating. Not to mention the
fact that the four actors have incredible chemistry, playing off each other
almost perfectly. There’s something authentic and easygoing about this first
section. Even Christopher Walken in a minor role as a mob boss and supporter of
the group manages to make a small but memorable impression.
However, it’s when it moves away from being about The Jersey
Boys (a group of scrappy underdogs from the wrong side of the tracks) and about
the Four Seasons (the band) that the picture begins to decline in quality. “The
Jersey Boys” falls into the typical musician biopic traps; there’s the “we’re
getting famous montage” showing them writing and recording songs—we get to hear
all of their hits, one after the other-- as well as some heavy partying. And of
course there’s the falling out between the group. Tommy becomes the loose
cannon of the group, running up a huge debt to some mobsters. Aside from the
fact that this is Musician biopic 101 stuff the drama feels forced and soap
opera-esque. There are moments between the band members that are meant to be
taken serious but are undone by some really bad overacting and dialogue. All
that easygoing, genuine energy that’s built up in the first thirty or forty
minutes practically dissipates and Eastwood puts the film into autopilot.
Things get even worse when the band breaks up and the focus
of the movie turns to Frankie’s solo career (with Bob writing and producing). That’s
because Frankie—as a character—is, well…bland. He can sing, god bless him, but
he’s by far the blandest of the group. He’s the good boy, the only one who gets
married and has a family, and the one who gets stepped on. And he stays in this
one note for the entire movie. He’s tolerable in the early section of the movie
because he’s part of a group and the brotherly relationship he has with the
other three is kind of endearing. Though, when it’s just Frankie it’s not
compelling. I would have preferred the movie follow Tommy around. Newcomer
Lloyd Young does the best he can and singing wise he’s very good but the role
simply doesn’t have enough meat to sustain the last act of the movie.
On top of that, more drama is shoehorned into the plot.
Frankie’s fame and constant being on the road takes its toll on his family. There’s
nothing inherently wrong with this but Eastwood handles it in such a flimsy
way, introducing this domestic drama at seemingly random moments. The trouble
involving Frankie’s troubled adolescent daughter comes out of nowhere and we’re
supposed to care about it even though we’ve never seen this kid or heard about
this trouble before. At this point though, the picture has pretty much slowed
to halt.
There are other issues. The musical numbers, while not bad,
don’t really stick with you. Instead feeling like an afterthought to the narrative
when they should be front and center. Since this is a movie adaptation of a
stage musical I imagine screenwriters Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (the
original authors of the musical) had to add a lot more story and dialogue and
you can see that. At two hours and fifteen minutes the movie is weighed down by
its cliché story and drags on. And finally, there’s some really really bad old age makeup at the end of
the picture. I know this sounds like nitpicking but this is the second time in
a row (after “J Edgar”) that an Eastwood movie has had bad old age make up. I’m
talking about some amateur zombie movie makeup in certain shots. I’m thinking
he should stay away from that.
I could list more problems but there’s not really any point.
I’m sure die hard fans of the musical will go see this “Jersey Boys,” and
probably find enjoyment from it but I feel like they—and everyone else curious
about the movie—would be better off staying home and listening to the original
Four Seasons music. I haven’t seen the original stage play but my mom who has
says that the music is really the only thing that matters. The music is what’s
going to live on whereas this movie will be quickly forgotten.
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