Clint Eastwood did not seem to be an obvious choice to direct this adaptation of the theatrical hit. ‘Paint Your Wagon’ aside, you really don’t associate him with musicals. Also, after a stellar run of films his last two directorial efforts (‘J. Edgar’ and ‘Hereafter’) have been average at best, so this film has arrived with less hype than you might otherwise expect.
Eastwood proves to be a safe pair of hands for this material. For the most part it’s a fairly straightforward musical biopic which charts the rise of Frankie Valli from his New Jersey roots where he could easily have become a criminal, to his rise to fame and the problems his career brought to his personal life. I haven’t seen the musical, so cannot comment on how it compares, but my guess would be that there is way more of the songs in the stage version. Not that many are featured in the film and most of those aren’t performed with some sort of interruption. That may well annoy lovers of the stage musical or fans of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, but as I am neither, I was pleased with that decision! Instead most of the focus is on the early struggles of the band and how they fall apart mainly due to financial issues, which is reasonably compelling stuff.
The cast are all fine, with John Lloyd Young making a sympathetic Valli, though it is only in the later songs his vocal and acting skills match. Christopher Walken has fun as a local Mafiosi, even though he is really becoming a caricature of himself. Erich Bergen, as a band member and main songwriter Bob Gaudio has one of the least showy roles, but his performance probably impresses the most.
Aside from the predictability of the plot, the other main problem is the device of various members of the cast breaking the fourth wall and narrating directly to the camera, which doesn’t really work or add anything. This is an improvement on his last two films but not a return to greatness for Eastwood.
Rating 6 out of 10