Jersey Boys

I saw the stage play 27x in Chicago and 1x on Broadway. I was fully prepared to hate The movie. But, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's not easy to take a stage production and make a good movie. Some reviewers say it started out slow but so did the musical. Jeez, you have to get the beginning of their story! Eastwood kept the same premise by letting each member tell their story...you know there's each person's perception and then there's the real story. You can watch this movie and tap your feet and clap with the music. There was no one behind me so I got up and danced in my seat a couple times!! There was applause a few times in the theater just like at a stage production. There were a few things Clint changed that I wish he had left alone. There were a few things he expounded upon that I enjoyed. I will be going back over and over and over again. This is a good time to be had by all. I'd like to slap some professional critics who panned it. They are way off base.

JERSEY BOYS is another winner from director Clint Eastwood and an adaptation of the popular stage musical about the life and times of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. It's a lengthy and often slow-moving biopic that takes a long time to get to the fame and fortune of the group in their heyday, yet there's something engrossing about it all the same. It helps immeasurably that Eastwood is an assured direction who brings a sheen of class and professionalism to all of his films, making this a delight to watch.

Most of the cast members are taken straight from the musical, so their singing is quite wonderful. Their renditions of all the popular hits are quite amazing, particularly the power house climax which is incredibly moving and perfectly performed. The ending credits, in which the whole cast provide an encore in the classic musical tradition, could easily have been completely cheesy in the hands of a less experienced director but Eastwood makes it work, and then some.

Acting stand-outs are John Lloyd Young as family man Frankie, whose turbulent private life is in contrast to his serene presence on the stage, and Vincent Piazza, delivering a variant on his edgy presence in BOARDWALK EMPIRE. I was delighted to see Christopher Walken cast in support as well. As musicals go, I'm not a massive fan of the genre, but JERSEY BOYS is good enough even for non-fans. Check it out.

3 out of 4 stars.

I was really excited for this movie. I saw the play in Chicago about 5 years ago and loved it. Clint Eastwood is one of my favorite directors and I thought "Jersey Boys" would be one of my favorite films of this year, but I was disappointed by Eastwood's adaptation of the hit Broadway play. Maybe I set my expectations too high. It's hard not to compare it to the play.

The acting is top notch (particularly John Lloyd Young, who won a Tony for the play), the sets are authentic, and the music is great. However, I felt Eastwood decided to add more talking moments and put the music to the side. The music becomes more background noise and not the driving force of the film. The film becomes more of a standard music biopic than the musical on Broadway. I understand why they made some of the choices and some of them work very well, but I would have liked to have seen more musical moments.

A lot of time is placed on the exposition and I thought it kind of slowed the film down. The actors break the fourth wall throughout the film, but I don't think Eastwood's style worked as well with it. Films that break the fourth wall and talk directly to the camera (like Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" or Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas) have a particular energy that drives the film. Eastwood, though, has a slower and more patient style and I'm not sure if breaking the fourth wall always went well with the film. The actors are good enough to make it work though.

The movie is at its best when the music comes to the forefront. Eastwood does a good job of showing the fun the band has creating music and the audiences' reaction to the music. It shows the power of their music. One of my favorite moments is when the band plays "Cry for Me" for the first time. It's music being created so naturally and shows why Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons are great. Other great song moments include "My Eyes Adored You" and the tear jerking rendition of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You."

Eastwood's "Jersey Boys" has its faults, but the sheer power of the music and the acting makes it a treat worth seeing.

There's a reason why the 1960s is widely known as the "Golden Era" of music, specifically, the birth of what is now called Rock n Roll. Comprising of four British teenagers from Liverpool, The Beatles produced their first album (Please Please Me) in 1963 and went on to be regarded as the greatest rock and roll band of all time. But just a year earlier, in 1962, four boys from New Jersey made heads turn and girls swoon with a unique 'sound' to their music. Jersey Boys is the phenomenal true story of a 'sound' that took four boys from New Jersey's mob controlled suburbs and made them into the icons they are today – legends whose music is still celebrated more than five decades on!

Produced and directed by another living legend – Clint Eastwood – Jersey Boys is a Tony Award winning Broadway and West End musical adaptation of the same name. Scripted by Woody Allen's Oscar winning collaborate Marshall Brickman (Anne Hall and Manhattan), the story benefits from a deeply dramatized account of the stage production, thus making it a biopic rather than just a musical. This is why the audience has to wait a good hour before Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young) makes our feet tap to the film's first real track: Sherry. But before we get to hear Young's remarkable rendition of Valli's incredible falsetto pitch, Brickman's story takes us through New Jersey's underworld circa. Valli is a good Italian-American kid but his friend Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) is just the opposite. They are both connected to local mobster Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken). Taking Valli under his wing, Tommy puts together a small time band but only manages mediocre returns while also moonlighting as juvenile delinquents. This changes with the arrival of Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), a golden goose of a singer- song writer whose epiphany changes the band's name from The Four Lovers to The Four Seasons. Then, with the addition of bass guitarist and singer Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda), Sherry, their first song as a band, becomes a hit and the group is instantly catapulted into nationwide fame.

By the time we get to the band's all-time number one hit single, Can't Take My Eyes Off You, there's trouble brewing. Domestic heartbreak and tragedy, ego trips and quarrels, financial crises and mob intervention turns cracks into fissures. Reminding us that this is in fact a stage show adaptation, Eastwood creates individual perceptions by allowing each member of the band to narrate his story directly to the camera. While this might seem like a theatre-cinema blending technique (ala Moulin Rouge!), it adds wholesome dimensions as a biography made for the discerning cinema audience. Adding on to that dimension is the juxtaposition of organized crime with the evolution of Doo-wop into rock and pop. In fact, there is a brief reference to Frank Sinatra, who as legendary as himself, was known to have ties with Chicago's notorious mobster Al Capone. To this effect, the story also includes real life actor Joe Pesci (Joey Russo) as a talent scout who recommends Bob to the band. Synonymous with mobster roles in previous films, Walken himself might seem like a cliché, but instead is entrusted with the film's humour and he delivers. Characterization from the rest leaves more to be desired. Young as front man Valli and Piazza as Tommy are more theatrical than expected in a film. It's a different matter when we get to see them perform as musicians – simply astonishing!

That there is no reference to era specific bands like The Beach Boys or the Bee Gees can be another letdown. Instead, Brickman's script remains parallel to the stage production with emphasis on an underdog rags-to-riches plot arc. Even so, as Eastwood's first musical adaptation, Jersey Boys has more hits than misses (excuse the pun). Like the Academy Award winning Walk The Line, a lot of focus has gone into the back story by dramatizing the true cost of fame and fortune. Above all, it is a brilliant narration on how pain and loss can conceive everlasting music. And judging from the need to make this film, it's no surprise that the music of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons will always remain evergreen.

Did anybody else notice these actors could'nt sing, why not use the original records ? I don't mind singers who can't act but there's plenty of actors who can sing I haven't seen the show but even the soundtrack must be better than this Clint Eastwood has made his mark as a director but this is so shallow Compared to the likes of the Bronx Tale. Most of the scenes with gangsters etc could have just been swiped off any low budget flick The phoney Italian accents would have been better in a Marx Brothers movie Than in something as important as this project This was my generation but seemed to have been played for the video audience