Not Fade Away

Not Fade Away takes me back to the Sixties when I would have been of the age that the young people of the film are in. Certainly the music was nostalgic enough and that will satisfy any number of fans.

James Gandolfini who starred as that other New Jersey legend of more recent vintage, Tony Soprano stars here as the father of aspiring musician John Magaro who wants more than anything else to succeed in Rock and Roll as those new groups from Great Britain are doing, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He and friends from his suburban New Jersey want to become rock stars only there's a lot more work involved than originally thought.

As for dad, Gandolfini doesn't like the kid's views or the new mod style of dress that his son is now taking up. He's a typical blue collar guy who has some real concerns about the family business and some even bigger concerns for his health. The two clash and their clash is what drives Not Fade Away.

I remember some kids on my block who were growing up including my next door neighbor in Brooklyn were doing exactly what Magaro and his friends were doing. None of them as I know stuck with music, but all apparently led successful lives, at least I've heard nothing different.

The music is wonderful if Sixties rock is your taste this is your film. The plot however is nothing that we haven't seen before. And Not Fade Away is hampered by a lack of character development other than Gandolfini and Magaro. But these two may be worth a look and a listen.

David Chase's anticipated Not Fade Away not only jumbles itself into an indulgent story, constantly keeping the audience at an arm's length but it's overly stretched and uneven not utilizing the strong talents in the film like James Gandolfini, Jack Huston, and John Magaro. A natural comparison to Almost Famous (2000), the film doesn't hold a candle to Cameron Crowe's homage to music. Showcasing outstanding music of the 1960′s and 1970′s, Chase manages to capture moments of the young adolescent mind longing to be more. Lead Magaro delivers a character transformation of mind and body, a turn that elevates the film considerably. The great Jack Huston, an actor that will likely be one of the biggest things in Hollywood any minute now, delivers an aggressive supporting turn reminiscent of Channing Tatum's work in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006). Bella Heathcote shows tenderness and promise but undervalued and virtually unused. James Gandolfini, stands out with charisma and garners much of the big laughs. A great character actor like Gandolfini should be given room to move. The film ultimately fails because it never feels like Chase knows his film or where he wants it to go. The last twenty minutes feel unneeded, unearned, and thrown together for an "artistic" catalyst with no emotional or technical effect whatsoever. A large disappointment.

"Not Fade Away" is one of those movies that leaves you with a bad taste after you watch the movie; it's like watching a movie by the resident cool kid in town, straddling the prettiest girl in one hand and on the other hand, going on about how he overcame his meager upbringing, dysfunctional family, disloyal friends to become who he is. The story might be genuine and the tribulations might be authentic but it's just the way it is told that makes it so unlikeable.

The movie does not have an ending (just an absurd tacked on one), creates handfuls of subplots that it never bothers to resolve and indulges heavily in the writer/director's own world of self-references and pointless pettiness. After furiously producing subplots like it's a pilot of a TV show it just ends, giving that unresolved what-ever-happened-to feeling that as a moviegoer I hate. The young Italian-American protagonist who is probably the writer/director himself doesn't have a real story to tell or a point to make. The story just meanders on and on, the key tension points leading absolutely nowhere. Rather than create a compelling story, the movie demands some sort of adulation for what it presents and ultimately insults the viewer assuming the viewer should feel privileged to hear the story rather than earning its merits.

"Not Fade Away" is advertised as a movie about a band trying to make it big; however this movie is more of a bizarre bake of 60s set pieces. There is the vintage music equipment show - the Rickenbachers, the Gretchs, the vintage Fenders and others; the vintage car show and then the 60s records - primarily an obsession with the Rolling Stones that are displayed in their big, shiny and loud glory. While the audience who were teenagers in the 60s might appreciate the shiny items of desire, the rest will find these shiny objects do not fill up a movie or compensate for a story. It's like a glossy vintage advertising brochure - pretty girls, rebellious rock stars and shiny things but not a story to tell.

The other major problem in the movie is the absolute opacity of its sub-characters. The father, the mother, the girlfriend, the band mates, the girlfriend's sister, the families are completely and utterly opaque. They keep doing bizarre things without showing or being to infer why they are doing what they are doing. Perhaps it's some sort of a 60s thing, a band thing, an Italian-American thing or a 60s band thing but I wouldn't know. The movie doesn't bother to really explain or resolve anything and it just bubbles up here and there and then it's gone. The movie is just a sequence of these strung together and it just makes all the characters unlikeable and tiring.

I like rock and roll movies but in this movie rock music neither serves as a backdrop for a personal story nor tells a story about the rock and roll greatness. The 60s backdrop overpowers the movie and the story feels like it's about a bunch of teenagers so in love with themselves that they feel they are the privileged ones. One scene comes to mind; an aunt comments, "I hear rock and roll keeps you young" to which our protagonist churlishly replies, "rock and roll is an art form. Does Dostoyevsky keep you young?"

David Chase's earnest mix of rock 'n roll, young love and family drama is overlong and sloppy, aspiring to be a defining examination of the Sixties but rendered trite by trudging out references to every historic moment (in this, it's similar to "Lee Daniels' The Butler") and wallowing in misguided pronouncements about the Vietnam War, capitalism and rock's purity; the intent is to advance the father-son conflict between lead John Magaro and a wasted James Gandolfini. (In fact, Chase unintentionally portrays rock music as a negative force, divisive enough to destroy families.) Chase's strength as the creator of "The Sopranos" was in his carefully plotted backstory that forced the viewer to pay close attention upfront; here, he employs a similar approach, but without the expanse a mini-series affords the result is disjointed and incomplete: all of the stories he introduces are either left unsatisfactorily unresolved or spontaneously concluded. It doesn't help that his characters are inherently unlikable (Magaro is a good example), mere caricatures (co-stars Jack Huston and Will Brill) or blanks (love interest Bella Heathcote). The film's sole asset is Steven Van Zandt's musical curation, though he eschews the deeper tracks in favor of songs even the casual fan will recognize.

David Chase's "Not Fade Away" looks at what it was like to come of age in the '60s. The main focus is a New Jersey teenager who decides to join a band, but there are clear signs of everything that was going on: the Vietnam War, the generation gap, racial tensions, and Dean Martin's mean-spirited comment about the Beatles. Contrary to the previous reviewer, I would say that this movie is better than "Almost Famous". The latter was too fluffy and came across as a sanitized look at its era. This one is very upfront about what sorts of things happened (including some very tense scenes). And the final line poses a good question about how we as Americans want to be known to the world. Can we eventually look to our best qualities to do what's right?

Anyway, this is a good movie. It's got great music and brings up some important points. I recommend it.