Jersey Boys – Rated M
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring John Lloyd Young and Christopher Walken.
In Cinemas Now
SHERRY.
Sherry baby.
Even if you don’t particularly like the music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, it’s hard not to tap your feet and sing along to it – or the countless other hits you’ll hear when watching Jersey Boys.
Following the eponymous band of misfits and rapscallions over the course of their lives – from hard beginnings to a fond reunion – Jersey Boys tells the classic tale of how the music industry tends to take you in when you’re a hit, and spit you out when they’re done cashing in.
It has all the musical movie tropes – heartache, fights, passion, romance, tragedy – it reads almost akin to Shakespeare’s finest… if old Bill spoke with a thick Jersey accent that is.
Taking him from a 15-year-old Francesco Castelluccio, committing robberies with his band mates, all the way through to an elderly Frankie Valli accepting his 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, John Lloyd Young captured greatly the highs and lows of life as the famous pop star.
Most importantly for the musically-stylised film – Young can hit the high falsetto and nasally tone that made Valli, the band and the Broadway show a success.
It won’t sit logically in a list of Clint Eastwood’s directorial achievements – it’s not in remotely the same vein as Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby or Letters from Iwo Jima – but he has done an alright job in a field he isn’t fluent in.
Musically inclined fans will leave the cinema humming the tunes and kicking their heels but, once again, as reiterated time and time again, the musical experience just won’t captivate the lovers of cinema.
It moves too fast for one film though – there’s a lot left undiscussed about the non-Valli band members and the people surrounding them.
Cinema might not be the right ticket for this experience as you’re better off seeing Jersey Boys at the theatre… rather than the movie theatre.
– Jarrod Potter
