Jersey Boys

It's not that I don't like musicals, nor is it that I don't like the music of Frankie Valli, but something about this movie fell flat. At times it felt derivative and not of the musical in which it is based. Although I do admit it is a very interesting story of how the band, The Four Seasons, became popular.

The film starts in New Jersey in the early 1950s and shows how Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) has started out working with friend and two-bit hustler Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), who is also in a band. DeVito works under mob boss Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken) who takes an interest in Frankie's ability to sing. Frankie eventually joins DeVito's band, which evolves into the Four Seasons over time. The film then follows the band through their rise to popularity and eventual break-up due to financial troubles caused by DeVito.

Although the film is based on a true story and musical, I felt as though Clint Eastwood was trying to emulate different films, in particular Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas. This is mainly because of his use of multiple narrators who directly address the camera. I can see how this works for the musical, each of the main characters having their own monologues to the audience, but I feel the constant breaking of the fourth wall sometimes took away from the story. Perhaps if it were just one of the characters narrating, I wouldn't mind it.

All the performances are spot on, especially Lloyd Young, who appeared in the original Broadway run of the musical. The performance I was a bit disappointed with was from Christopher Walken, who was just playing his character from True Romance. Eastwood even worked himself in with a cameo from one of his movies from the period.

I can't really fault the music because these are songs that have been popular for fifty years or more. Although I wasn't a fan of the encore at the end of the film. Here they bring out all the cast who appeared in the film. This works of course in a stage musical, but not in a film. It's not like we forget who these characters are and it leaves the film on a high note, rather than the sobering end that the previous scene would have left us with, which would suit the overall tone of the film.

Verdict: An inconsistant film adaptation of a musical that I'm sure works really well. Good performances and music help it only so far.