★★½
“Jersey Boys” is a musical depicting the rise of the 1960s rock group The Four Seasons. It is an adaptation of the 2006 Tony Award winning Broadway musical of the same name. The stage musical is described as a documentary style presentation. The film is done in largely the same manner with many of the characters breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience about the events happening or about to happen.
“Jersey Boys” depicts much of the turmoil within the band after they begin selling millions of records but also how Frankie Valli was able to keep some of his own personal integrity in tact. Director Clint Eastwood has an exceptional grasp on this story and what all four of these characters are going through. There’s genuine change in each character in this film. No one is vilified to the point where you have to despise one in order to like another. Eastwood could easily have gone this route, but instead puts forth a film that makes each character sympathetic in his own way.
Vincent Piazza is great in his role as Tommy DeVito. He serves as our first narrator in the film and conveys many different emotions. He displays a lot of determination to see his band succeed, and that’s a pretty typical archetype in stories such as this. And yet he never feels derivative. The movie ultimately belongs to John Lloyd Young, who originated the role of Frankie on Broadway (and won a Tony for the role too). He has a commanding presence on the screen and can really sing the songs like Frankie himself. I can only imagine what it must have been like to see this man play this role live on Broadway.
“Jersey Boys” is a musical depicting the rise of the 1960s rock group The Four Seasons. It is an adaptation of the 2006 Tony Award winning Broadway musical of the same name. The stage musical is described as a documentary style presentation. The film is done in largely the same manner with many of the characters breaking the fourth wall to talk to the audience about the events happening or about to happen.
We start with Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), a guitar player and singer who also has some deep ties to a New Jersey mob family lead by Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken). He’s also pals with a kid named Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) and recognizes that he has a very unique and promising singing voice. He’s already got a vocal group going with Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) and eventually Frankie comes in as the lead singer and assumes an easier to pronounce name: Frankie Valli.
But venues don’t want to book trios, so they need to find a fourth member. They happen upon a songwriter named Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen). Frankie loves the guy right away, but Tommy isn’t so sure. They eventually come to terms and the group is formed. They get some work doing backup studio vocals for producer Bob Crewe (Mike Doyle). He doesn’t think they have anything unique on their own until they bring him a song called “Sherry.” Then one called “Big Girls Don’t Cry.” And another called “Walk Like a Man.” But of course, fame has its way of ruining successful bands, and The Four Seasons are no exception.
“Jersey Boys” depicts much of the turmoil within the band after they begin selling millions of records but also how Frankie Valli was able to keep some of his own personal integrity in tact. Director Clint Eastwood has an exceptional grasp on this story and what all four of these characters are going through. There’s genuine change in each character in this film. No one is vilified to the point where you have to despise one in order to like another. Eastwood could easily have gone this route, but instead puts forth a film that makes each character sympathetic in his own way.
However, Eastwood does get a little too carried away trying to add too many different layers to these characters. “Jersey Boys” starts out slow with and takes its time setting everything up. The first act break is not discernable at all. My guess is it comes about 45-50 minutes into the film (usually it’s about 20, no more than 30). This makes for a long and dry act of setup. The act breaks here are different than that of the original source material, of course, since it’s a three-act film rather than a two-act musical theater production.
The screenplay was adapted by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, the writers of the musical’s book, but have stumbled bringing their story into the world of film. They’ve written the script to include not only their original storyline, but to include many more elements that aren’t easy to depict on stage. They probably should have just filmed the musical book instead and hoped it worked. I’m surprised Eastwood didn’t do that since he has a habit of filming the first draft of scripts rather than waiting on endless rewrites.
Vincent Piazza is great in his role as Tommy DeVito. He serves as our first narrator in the film and conveys many different emotions. He displays a lot of determination to see his band succeed, and that’s a pretty typical archetype in stories such as this. And yet he never feels derivative. The movie ultimately belongs to John Lloyd Young, who originated the role of Frankie on Broadway (and won a Tony for the role too). He has a commanding presence on the screen and can really sing the songs like Frankie himself. I can only imagine what it must have been like to see this man play this role live on Broadway.
“Jersey Boys” has all the makings of great film, but it just gets too lost in its own story to ever become the gripping movie it should have been. It has the look and feel of all the great Eastwood movies. Eastwood and his longtime cinematographer Tom Stern have a beautiful gritty look in this film that is distinctly theirs (very similar to the looks they achieved with “Million Dollar Baby” which is still Eastwood’s best movie by far). But the beauty of the film and the razor sharp acting and vocal performances cannot salvage the fact that “Jersey Boys” runs way too long. It is probably much more suited for a live theatrical performance rather than a silver screen presentation.
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