[Collaboration Review] Jersey Boys (2014)

The first seconds of director Clint Eastwood’s latest cinematic venture bring viewers into a world of nostalgia. Fading from black and white to colour and playing a familiar 70s dance tune in the background. As the urban retro setting is brought to life, spectators are introduced to our first protagonist Tommy DeVito played Boardwalk Empire’s Vincent Piazza. Uniquely breaking the fourth wall, Tommy unravels 2 and half hours of supposed bland melodrama and lifeless musical performances. Critics and movie fans alike universally pan this film as previously described, stating that the director cannot combining music and drama. However critics themselves are unaware that this piece is not a musical but a realistic journey of four men who venture out of the ghetto to reach their musical aspirations. Music is only used in realistic circumstances such as when a character is rehearsing or performing not as a vehicle to convey ideas thus rending it from being a musical.  Therefore critique of this film is invalid as this work is simply a life story with all the ups and down one experiences along the way. It also works to play on viewer’s emotions and livening a bygone era including lifestyles, attitudes and the music. Jersey Boys is very much a standalone film as well as being a celebration of the popular stage show of which it’s based.      

Director: Clint Eastwood 
Writer(s): Marshall Brickman, Rick Elice
Starring: Vincent Piazza, John Lloyd Young, Christopher Walken, Michael Lomenda, Erich Bergen
Runtime: 137 minutes
Release Date(s): United States: June 20th 2014, Australia: July 3rd 2014