Dreary Jersey Boys only perks up when the music starts

The rags-to-riches story Jersey Boys, which chronicles the career highs and lows of Frankie Valli and the Four Season, made its Broadway debut in 2005, racking up four Tony Awards (including Best Musical), spinning off international versions and launching a US tour in 2006 which is still on the road today. Now director Clint Eastwood brings that show to the big screen with several cast members from Broadway or touring companies reprising their roles.

The story, if you’re not familiar, traces the origin of the group that became known as The Four Seasons. Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) has a band that performs in a local nightclub in Belleville, NJ. One night he gives friend Frankie Castelluccio (John Lloyd Young) a shot at singing with the group and brings him in as their lead (and Frankie changes his name to Vally and then Valli). When their friend Joey Pesci (yes, that Joe Pesci, played by Joseph Russo) introduces Tommy, Frankie and Nick Massi (Michael Lomenda) to songwriter Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen), who had a hit song when he was 15, Frankie decides he should be an equal partner in the group, very much against Tommy’s wishes. Needless to say, Frankie was right but not everything was sunshine and roses as Tommy dug himself and the group into a financial hole that Frankie vowed to get them out of.

Jersey Boys, the movie, follows the stage musical fairly closely save for some extra expository scenes at the beginning of the movie. But the movie is just missing something that makes the show so wonderful, and it’s just that lack of energy that you get when this great music performed live on stage. The film itself is oddly quiet for the most part, with very little musical underscoring during the non-singing scenes. Perhaps Eastwood felt a score would take away from the songs, but it just makes the movie feel a bit empty and lifeless.

The performances are quite good across the board, with Young reprising his Tony Award winning role as Frankie … although it’s a little hard to buy him as a 16-year-old at the film’s start. His Frankie Valli is the group’s, and the film’s, anchor but he seems to always have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Even when he sings with that amazing voice, he rarely smiles. Even looking through all of the press photos, I could not find a single instance of him smiling. And Eastwood claims the actors all sang live on set, but there are times when that seems questionable (and the credits list many of the songs as “performed by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons” which makes the situation even more curious).

Piazza bring the most spark to his role as the volatile Tommy and Renée Marino, reprising her Broadway role as Mary Delgado (eventually Mrs. Valli), also brings some much needed fire to her scenes with Young. Russo does a pretty good young Joe Pesci, but the actor who will probably get the most notice is Mike Doyle for his flamboyant portrayal of writer/producer Bob Crewe. Some may say it’s a bit too over-the-top, but Doyle plays the role pretty much as it was played on stage, and with input from Valli and Gaudio, the depiction is probably accurate.

Eastwood directs the film with little flash, restraining himself from incorporating a lot of modern camera moves and quick edits during the musical numbers which is fitting for the era. The film is production designed perfectly, and cinematographer Tom Stern gives the film a very muted, almost sepia-toned palette. For the most part, the musical segments sound terrific, but things go horribly awry at what should be the film’s big moment.

In the stage version, when Frankie performs his signature song “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” it’s a moment that is meant to give you goosebumps as he gets to the chorus and a full orchestra is revealed. In the movie, that reveal comes off a little more awkwardly because Eastwood is shooting the reveal too much in close-up. But that’s not the worst of it. The audio mix is atrocious, and the song has been re-orchestrated to include some brash, sharp, too loud saxophones which almost make your ears bleed, and they completely omitted that signature Bob Crewe musical touch that tells you it’s a Bob Crewe song (and if you’ve ever heard the music Crewe did for the movie Barbarella, you’ll know what I’m talking about). It was a terribly off-key musical moment in an otherwise perfectly fine audio mix. And let’s not even talk about the terrible old age makeup and wigs applied to the actors for their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction scene.

Eastwood closes the film with what is essentially a curtain call, uniting the entire cast to dance and sing down the street to “Oh What a Night.” It would have been nice had he also put the actor’s names with their faces since so many of them are virtual unknowns to movie-goers. I had really high hopes for Jersey Boys, especially after enjoying the stage version so much earlier this year but having that so fresh in my memory probably made it nearly impossible to appreciate the movie. And be warned, the movie is rated R mainly for the extremely colorful language which has also been imported from the stage version. If you’re sensitive to that sort of thing, you may want to think twice about seeing either. If you’ve always wanted to see the show but haven’t, then this is an okay introduction (for the most part), but if you do have the chance to see it live, don’t pass it up.