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Jersey Boys (2014)
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
During the 1950's four troubled youth form a musical group and attempt to escape their crime ridden New Jersey neighborhood. They will become the 60s pop band the Four Seasons.
Believe it or not, when I started watching this I had no idea that it was a biography-drama about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I thought I was watching a fictional film about a 1950s rock band. I had never heard of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys either which this film is based on.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, so I expected big things from this film. I didn't get them. I never felt like I got to know who Frankie was or what made him special. It's an Eastwood movie and it does look great, nice subdued lighting and longer scene lengths and all that...but the story fell flat. That's despite the fact that the antagonist story line is pumped up so that we get a nearly psycho character in Tommy (Vincent Piazza). Vincent Piazza is the best thing in the film. He dominates the scenes he's in, leaving poor Frankie (John Lloyd Young) in the dust.
I'm not a fan of John Lyold Young nasally singing which grated on my nerves. The real Frankie Valli could sing this way and get away with it, in the film it just didn't work for me.
Eastwood choose to have the actors directly speak to the audience at times. A choice that I found broke the illusion of the storytelling, taking me right out of the story.
For a biography of what should have been one helluva story about a poor kid escaping the gangster life style to became a national renown singer...the film was surprisingly dull.
It's not a bad movie, but not up to Eastwood's standards.
Rating
Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda
Genre: Biography, Drama, Music
During the 1950's four troubled youth form a musical group and attempt to escape their crime ridden New Jersey neighborhood. They will become the 60s pop band the Four Seasons.
Believe it or not, when I started watching this I had no idea that it was a biography-drama about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. I thought I was watching a fictional film about a 1950s rock band. I had never heard of the Broadway musical Jersey Boys either which this film is based on.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, so I expected big things from this film. I didn't get them. I never felt like I got to know who Frankie was or what made him special. It's an Eastwood movie and it does look great, nice subdued lighting and longer scene lengths and all that...but the story fell flat. That's despite the fact that the antagonist story line is pumped up so that we get a nearly psycho character in Tommy (Vincent Piazza). Vincent Piazza is the best thing in the film. He dominates the scenes he's in, leaving poor Frankie (John Lloyd Young) in the dust.
I'm not a fan of John Lyold Young nasally singing which grated on my nerves. The real Frankie Valli could sing this way and get away with it, in the film it just didn't work for me.
Eastwood choose to have the actors directly speak to the audience at times. A choice that I found broke the illusion of the storytelling, taking me right out of the story.
For a biography of what should have been one helluva story about a poor kid escaping the gangster life style to became a national renown singer...the film was surprisingly dull.
It's not a bad movie, but not up to Eastwood's standards.
Rating