Beached

Rating: 6/10 (21 June 2014)

This film is mildly recommended.
Oh, everyone's heard of Jersey Boys, the highly acclaimed Broadway smash musical. It's been running for years, nine and counting. Now, that show has spawned a new film adaptation, directed by Clint Eastwood, in hopes of duplicating that same success. The production was the typically jukebox musical with vignettes of dramatic scenes interspersed between the musical concert moments. While the show bristled with high energy and expert staging, the movie takes a more realistic and serious tone, as well it should, with the different media approach. But where on stage, the live performances captured the real essence of book and song, the movie version is a pale(rider) imitation.
Now, one shouldn't compare two distinct art forms. So, with that said, I will concentrate only on the film version and see if the film can stand on its own merits. It does, a bit wobbly, but quite satisfactorily.
￼Jersey Boys dramatizes the beginnings and end of the popular 1960's singing group, The Four Seasons, spanning a ten year career. The film concentrates on the rise and fall of this singing group and their on-again / off-again relationships, particularly the back-story of its lead vocalist Frankie Valli (well played by John Lloyd Young). Song after song, the story unfolds in a Rashomon format, with each member of the group reminiscing, contradicting, and giving their own personal point of view of the action on screen.
Eastwood misdirects the film by placing the melodramatics front and center and pushing the music to the back. He takes a straightforward approach to the material, having the actors speak directly to the audience with their asides which becomes a bit jarring. Still the musical numbers always entertain, even if they are never match the originals. In fact, some harmonies have a dissonant quality and shrill harmonies. Some of the orchestrations are mostly overwrought, especially the horn section in the live performance of Can't Get My Eyes Off of You.
￼ The screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice sanitizes the actual facts of this docudrama, but connect the dots in an artful manner. It celebrates the music but its narrative, with its all too prevalent gangsters from Jer-see and their Italian stereotypes, is far too predictable and slightly offensive. Wise guys and not-so-wise guys make up most of the characters involved in this tale, none of which is more obviously than mobster Gyp DeCarlo played by an all too recognizable Christopher Walken.
￼Jersey Boys starts off very slow. Their first hit song, Sherry, doesn't even surface until 40 minutes into the film. At that point, the film starts gain some momentum. As the group begins its slew of pop hits (Big Girls Don't Cry, Walk Like a Man), Jersey Boys showcases those ditties and others.
The cast works hard and achieves much success due to their talents. Beside Lloyd, the other actors who make up the remaining members of the singing quartet are Vincent Piazza, Michael Lomenda, and Erich Bergen, all contributing fine support. Mike Doyle and newcomer Renee Marino make their characters memorable in their underwritten roles.
But this film version of Jersey Boys lacks vital energy and excitement. Eastwood has always been a serious filmmaker and, in this case, he makes this film musical too serious for its own good. It's as if he sucked all the the life out of the original source and was determined to make a drama with music rather than a full scale musical. (The end credits show what fun the film could have been with some fancy choreography and staging added to the film.) To this director, the story remains sacrosanct and too often his decision (and that of the screenwriters as well) regulates the songs as mere background to a sketchy biography, whereas the reverse would have been more effective. There simply is no joy in Jersey Boys to be had. GRADE: B-
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