Movie Review: Jersey Boys
Before The Beatles came to our shores in the mid-1960s, I don’t think there was a bigger rock band in America than The Four Seasons. The Four Seasons are one of the best-selling musical groups of all time, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide. The story of the band’s formation, success, and their eventual break-up has already been dramatized in Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, a jukebox musical which debuted on Broadway in 2005. And now that musical has been brought from the stage to the screen. The new movie Jersey Boys is a lot of fun and quite entertaining, but unfortunately the film suffers from narrative and structural issues that prevent it from reaching its full potential.
Obviously, the focus of the cast is on the four members of The Four Seasons – John Lloyd Young as frontman/lead vocalist Frankie Valli, Erich Bergen as keyboardist/tenor vocalist/songwriter Bob Gaudio, Michael Lomenda as bass vocalist/bass guitarist Nick Massi, and Vincent Piazza as lead guitarist/baritone vocalist Tommy DeVito. Young won a Tony Award back in 2006 for playing Valli in the original Broadway production of Jersey Boys, and he does great work here, with his singing in particular being amazing. My favorite of the four was Bergen as Gaudio, the only non-New Jersey native of the four, and quite often the voice of reason. Lomenda’s Massi doesn’t get a lot to do, but the scene where he finally flips out on Tommy is one of the best in the film. Piazza as DeVito gets the flashiest character arc of the quartet, being the one whose embracing of his stardom comes back to bite him. Mike Doyle, best known as Ryan O’Halloran on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, is a lot of fun as the flamboyant Bob Crewe, the songwriter/record producer who co-wrote with Gaudio a number of The Four Seasons’ hits. Joseph Russo is good in his brief supporting role as Joe Pesci – yes, Joe Pesci the actor. In a definite case of truth being stranger than fiction, Pesci was friends with Valli, DeVito, and Massi before any of them were famous, and he helped introduce the three to Gaudio. But the person who ends up stealing the show is Christopher Walken as Angelo “Gyp” DeCarlo, a member of the New York Genovese crime family who ran loansharking operations in New Jersey during the 1960s. Walken is always a joy to watch, and his role here of this oddly avuncular gangster who takes the boys under his wing is no exception.
One of the most interesting things about Jersey Boys is the person in the director’s chair, none other than Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood. At first glance, this might seem like an odd project for Eastwood to tackle. But if you look at his filmography, it’s clear that music has been something of great interest to him for a long time. Eastwood directed the Charlie Parker biopic Bird (1988), produced the documentary Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988), and has performed or composed music for a number of his films. Of course, he also starred in the infamous Western musical Paint Your Wagon (1969), but we won’t hold that against him.
Unsurprisingly, the strongest aspect of Jersey Boys is the music. Many of The Four Seasons’ famous songs are featured here, including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Dawn (Go Away),” “Big Man in Town,” “Beggin’,” and “C’mon Marianne.” Also featured are some of the songs from Frankie Valli’s solo career, such as “My Eyes Adored You” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” And the film also includes some other notable songs of the period, such as the Royal Teens’ 1958 hit single “Short Shorts,” which was co-written by Gaudio, and the 1963 hit “My Boyfriend’s Back” by the girl group The Angels.
John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen and Michael Lomenda in “Jersey Boys.” © 2014 – Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Unfortunately, whenever the music stops, the problems with the film’s storytelling become apparent. By the very nature of the movie’s episodic “greatest hits” structure, we don’t really get inside the heads of the four guys, nor do we get to examine any part of their career in depth. As a general rule, biopics work much better when they are based around a brief period of time, a specific event, or one aspect of the subject’s life/career, and are able to go in-depth about it. For example, a big part of why Walk the Line (2005) worked so well was because the story was largely centered on the relationship between Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. In Jersey Boys, we see that The Four Seasons were certainly great singers and performers, but not what it was about them that captured the public’s interest and made them so successful. The dialogue is full of funny lines, but there aren’t many that take us into the minds of characters. Ultimately, the biggest problem with the storytelling is that the passage of time is frequently unclear, especially for people like me who were largely unaware of the history of The Four Seasons. For example, “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Walk Like a Man” were released over the course of about a year, but the film makes it look like maybe a month or two.
Ultimately, Jersey Boys is a bit of a mixed bag, but definitely one leaning toward the positive. The performances are good and the music is great, but the non-musical scenes tend to drag and the storytelling has suffered multiple issues in the translation from stage to screen. However, if you’re a fan of The Four Seasons or movie musicals in general, consider giving Jersey Boys a try.
Timothy Monforton
