Eastwood applies his usual polished touch to this re-creation of one of the great pop bands

Rating: 9/10 (10 May 2015)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Frankie Casstalucio (John Lloyd Young) is a young man in New Jersey, who ekes out a living as a hair-dresser, but who possesses an incredible, falsetto voice that reduces grown men (such as local mobster Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken)) to tears. Stuck with two bit hustler friends, headed by local loudmouth Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza), he has the option to follow their example and head in and out of prison all the time, or really make something of his life. Which, thankfully, he did, and the film charts his triumphs, tragedies and adventures as part of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Of all the iconic bands, that were part of the 'golden age' of music, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons were easily the most 'marmite' of the lot of them (you loved them or hated them.) Either Valli's shrieking, ear-piercing falsetto voice is music to your ears, or the sort of thing they should use at Guantanamo Bay. Personally, given it was all music well before my time, they must have been something special to really stand out and have so many songs that I loved. And it seems others think the same way, since the hit Broadway musical this is based on has been such an astronomical success, and still enjoys tours nationally to this day (not to mention the up-coming tour Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons themselves will be doing this summer, even in their eighties, probably on the back of all that.). And so, Clint Eastwood, no less, has seen fit to adapt it into this film presentation.
Adapting it from a musical is a risky strategy, though. As a result, the pace of the story-telling rubs off on the screen, and some of the character's (most notably Piazza's Tommy DeVito) come off somewhat larger than life, which affects the tone of the drama. That's not to say it's any less affecting, when it wants to be, and that the young cast don't do a great job of re-creating the young men in their prime. Eastwood has shown typical shrewdness by casting a group of unknowns, so that the legend of Valli and his cohorts aren't over shadowed by the presence of any modern day hunks.
For those that prefer the story captured on screen rather than stage, Eastwood, who maybe had an affection for the band nobody ever knew about, has applied his usual deft touch and delivered something that gets it just right. ****