It just glosses over the events with a Hollywood sheen that wears thin fast.

Rating: 4/10 (1 May 2018)

'Jersey Boys (2014)' never really gives you an insight into the minds of the men behind the music. It never gives you a sense of their passion for the craft or how their songs are a product of their environment. It never even conveys an appropriate sense of impact or escalation to the events that lead to the group's eventual downfall. Instead, it uses its time to gloss by the big hits and early beginnings in a boringly check-list fashion, with only a surface level of depth and a Hollywood sheen that wears thin fast. It doesn't help that, even though there are some undoubtable classics in their repertoire, the group's high-pitched lead vocal eventually becomes whiny and annoying when listening to it for two-hours as opposed to three-minutes on a record. The odd fourth-wall breaking asides switch perspectives too often to feel like anything more than expositional crutches, that are surely a by-product of lazy writing, too. The feature as a whole feels like it lacks a proper structure, never coming to a head with a true final act and finishing in almost the exact way that it started. It actually feels more like a TV-special than a bona fide feature. A poor effort from Eastwood. 4/10