Juror #2 (2024)

 

It would not be possible to write about this movie without the context in which I saw it. The world has changed so much in the last ten years, many of those changes are subtle and may go unnoticed by some people. I however, have noticed. I notice that theaters are often empty when new films are playing, that films which have some serious issue to discuss get ignored off of the screens that they manage to play on when they do get a release. I have noticed that it is a disparaging phrase to say "Your Dad will like it." In the last couple of years, there have been a few films I was lucky to catch in a theater, which almost certainly would have earned that back handed compliment, films like "The Covenant", "The Greatest Beer Run Ever" and "Fly Me to the Moon". These were films aimed at an mature audience, and they were lucky to get any screen time in a theater. While they are of varying quality, they deserved the time I was willing to give them, and they earned a lot more respect than some films which have been huge box office successes, but which are barely real stories or movies.  Whenever I have written about them, I have made an effort to give them serious thought (even when they don't deserve it, I'm looking at you "Barbie").  When I see a movie like "Juror #2" being dismissed as "Your Dad's new favorite movie", it frustrates me. Even when those are complimentary due to the old fashioned quality of a film, it sends a message to potential viewers that there is something here that is not for them.

Warner Brothers has made it clear that they feel the same way about this film. It is not for you. The have given it the most token of releases. It is on thirty-five screens around the country. As far as I can tell, in the state of Texas, where I live, it is on one screen in Dallas. Texas with thirty plus million residents, the second most populous state in the country, has one theater showing "Juror #2", the latest film from cinema treasure Clint Eastwood. I saw some spin on one entertainment site suggesting that this was a limited release because the film would only open in the single digits and that Warner Brothers did not want Eastwood to be embarrassed by a flop. If you believe that, let me tell you about the golden opportunity to invest in property in California City. Also I have a bridge you might like to buy in the New York area. 

I had to drive two hundred miles one way to see the movie in a theater opening weekend. That is three hours on the Interstate from Austin to Dallas. After the movie, I had the same three hour trip back. I can't say I would always make a trip like that to see a Clint Eastwood project, after all I skipped          "J. Edgar",  "Hereafter" and "15:17 to Paris" completely. Yet the disrespect that Warner Brothers has shown one of their most productive and creative collaborators was so offensive to me, I felt compelled to make the effort. Oh, and I am glad I did.

"Juror #2" is a thoughtful story about responsibility and justice. Nicolas Hoult stars as Justin Kemp, a man who has turned his life around and found sobriety, but who has been tested by brutal circumstances. He is committed to doing the right thing, but is faced with another test and it is one that has severe consequences for others. As we follow his story, we can easily identify with his dilemma. He knows the truth in a criminal case that he is serving on a jury for, but revealing that truth would be devastating to him personally but also to the two people who will be depending on him in the future. What is the right thing to do, where does justice come in?  Justin is also not the only one wrestling with these issues.

Maybe people will see this as an old fashioned movie because it feels like an update of "12 Angry Men". Courtroom dramas lack the fireworks of an action film or comic book movie, but they offer drama that can be completely compelling if told properly, and Eastwood and his team are doing that here. Screenwriter Johnathan Abrams, has constructed a plausible if unlikely scenario, for our central characters to confront.  What is even more plausible is the dynamic in the jury room. We don't get the same kind of character detail for most of the jurors that we did in "12 Angry Men", but we do get enough of their attitudes and opinions to understand the arguments that will ensue. Marcus and Yolonda are the two jurors that resist the direction that Justin tries to lead the jury in. They challenge his rationale for hesitating to quickly render a guilty verdict. We know that Justin is motivated both by seeing justice done and self preservation, but his strategies are exactly the temperate thinking that one would hope a jury would engage in before deciding a man's fate. 

There are complications in the process however, and Harold, played by J.K. Simmons , is both an ally to Justin's cause and a threat to him. So another set of ethical questions get raised in the story. I said earlier, that Justin and the jurors are not the only ones wrestling with these questions. Both the prosecutor and the public defender have serious moral conflicts that they face. The prosecutor is played by Toni Collette, who in an interesting side note, played Hoult's mother twenty years ago in the film "About a Boy". Faith Killebrew is being tested in a manner similar to that of Justin. One of the eternal issues in our justice system is the conflict over winning a case versus doing the right thing. Prosecutor Faith begins to doubt the validity of her own case. I try to avoid spoilers in these posts, so I will not provide any more details here, but let it be said that the resolution of the film does not leave anyone looking like a moral giant.

As usual, a Clint Eastwood film is polished and the craft in making it its impeccable. Director of photography Yves Bélanger, has worked with Eastwood before, and the film looks terrific in the courtroom scenes but even better when we get some exterior sequences. The dramatic moment that creates the whole plot is clear enough for us to understand what happened and still believe that Justin was uncertain of what took place. Clint skipped composing a jazz inflected score as he has done on some of his other projects, instead Mark Mancia provides a sparse set of musical elements that underscore moments in the film without drawing attention to itself. Longtime editor Joel Cox has done all of Eastwood's films since "The Outlaw Josey Wales" , he seems to understand perfectly the deliberate style that Eastwood wants. The movie moves at a pace that is efficient but not rushed. The visualizations of the big moments are not frantic and they play out as thoughtful narratives as a result. Cox is working with David Cox on this film, I'm not sure if they are related. 

Finally I want to take note of the performances. Nicolas Hoult has to hold the film together as a good man conflicted by a bad situation. We can see anguish underneath some of the choices that Justin is making in the film. There is also palpable fear registering as he confronts one of his fellow jurors over the decision they must make. Toni Collette starts the film with a slight Southern accent, the film is set in Georgia after all, but I don't think she was as committed to it in the later parts of the film. Outside of the accent issue however, her performance is strong, registering doubt and resignation at the right moments. Chris Messina plays public defender Eric Resnick, who convinces us that he is convinced of his clients innocence. He has a light touch with the guilt trips that he imposes on Collette's character, which seems to reflect the professional relationship the two of them were likely to have. 

This movie forces us to think on moral issues surrounding the way the justice system works. As most of us are aware, it is often an ugly process that emphasizes technical fidelity to the rules rather than finding a just result. The current internet outrage over the State of New York, seizing a squirrel and a racoon and destroying them, is an example of the same kinds of power issues this film presents. Regardless of who wins, everyone who wrestles with a pig ends up covered in muck. It's too bad that Warner Brothers decides that they wanted to tussle with film fans. So far Clint has stayed out of the marketing muck, and has stuck to drawing us a picture of the imperfections in all of us.  

400 Miles Round Trip

KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975: The Eiger Sanction

Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don't see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy.

The Eiger Sanction

This is the second time I have written about this film for the blog. The first was on my original Movie a Day project that started the whole blog. "The Eiger Sanction" was number 73 on that summer countdown. As one of the few films on the project from Clint Eastwood, that was not a western, it should stand out a little more. I was probably a little underwhelmed when I wrote about it thirteen years ago because it was a slow burn that took ninety minutes to get to the featured premise of the movie, mountain climbing spy action. 

In filling the time before we actually arrive in Switzerland to ascend the Eiger, there first is a series of scenes and plotlines that feel only slightly connected to the plot. The best is Clint going to Europe to execute one of the killers he has been sent to "sanction". He is Johnathan Hemlock, an executioner for a secret agency known as C-2, that is directed by a mysterious Albino called Dragon. Hemlock wants out and is refusing to continue to work for C-2, but Dragon blackmails him into performing this last sanction by threatening his art collection, which is Hemlock's main motivation for working in the field in the first place. Like Charles Bronson in "The Mechanic", Hemlock appreciates art and music and uses his wealth to acquire a fantastic collection that today would be worth hundreds of millions. 

In my original post I warned that this film might be a little tough for modern audiences to accept. The intervening years have made that even more the case. Hemlock passes himself off at one point as an effeminate delivery man to throw off the prey he is after. When he gets a chance to gain revenge against a former friend who is a raging homosexual by 1970s standards, he is particularly cruel. The name the antagonist has for his dog is not only insensitive but nearly as objectionable as if he had named to dog with the "N" word. Like Ethan Hunt or James Bond, Hemlock ends up in bed with another asset of the company and gets trapped into carrying out an even more elaborate "sanction" of an as yet unidentified counter agent. That woman is named Jemima Brown, and there are plenty of jokes about pancakes and ethnicity. There is an extended sequence of Hemlock training for a climbing expedition, and an attractive woman of Native American heritage becomes a sex object with the added bonus of jokes about Cowboys and Indians. 

A few things that I do want to draw attention to. First of all, the opening section of the film is set in Zurich, as a man drinks his beer next to a canal or river, and then strolls through some older traditional parts of the city to his apartment. All the while, there is no dialogue and the music is by the great John Williams. 

I feel like I have seen a dozen movies from the era that repeat the same kind of sequence at the start. It was a trope of the era and if you listen to the music clip above, you will hear a familiar piano style tune that has been enhanced with some jazz and electronic tools to make it sound more mysterious. It's not a bad thing at all, it just feels overly familiar, although it may not have been so when the film first came out. 

The main reason to see the film is for the suspenseful climbing sequences that take place in the last half hour of the film. The movie was made on location and there are no blue/green screen composite shots in the film. Eastwood did his own climbing in this section as well as some the ascent of the Totem Pole edifice in Monument Valley (although he and George Kennedy were helicoptered to the top and professional climbers did the main ascent). 

On the Eiger, there were dangerous shots that actually lead to some injuries to  a camera operator, and a another climber, helping with camera shots was killed by falling rocks. Eastwood did the ultimate stunt at the end of the film when dangling by a rope several thousand feet above the valley floor. He actually drops when he cuts the rope above him, it is hard to imagine that a movie studio could get insurance for an actor/director in that scenario today (Tom Cruise being the exception maybe). 

The plot gets convoluted as it usually does with a spy film. There are double crosses, mixed motives, and attacks from unanticipated sources around every corner. There is a sense that this is a more serious sort of James Bond film, but then "Dragon" runs the command from his light free subterranean lair, and the other operative we see is an ineffectual lug who has less knowledge of karate than I do. I will say there is one trick I learned from this film. If someone is following to close behind me, instead of tapping the breaks which interferes with my momentum, I sometimes turn on my head lights which activates the rear lights and makes whoever is following, think you are breaking. 

I will recommend the film to those who like a slow burn, a satisfying action climax and don't mind a little 70s sexism and racism spicing up the film.  

Cry Macho

 

Long in the tooth and slow in the gait, Clint Eastwood still has enough star power to wipe most other performers off the screen. This 91 year old national treasure keeps working and making the cinema world a better place as a result. While "Cry Macho" may not be up to the standards of his greatest films, it is certainly entertaining enough and it speaks to issues that seem contemporary, even though the film is set forty years ago. 

Many Eastwood films have featured him in the role of mentor to a younger character. "Gran Torino" was all about a cross cultural lampooning and deconstruction of supposed "toxic masculinity", so it is not really a surprise that this film treads familiar ground. Clint's character Mike Milo, is a used up man, without much to look forward to except release from this world. When his estranged friend and former employer played by Dwight Yoakam enlists him to go to Mexico City and essentially kidnap his 13 year old son from the Mother that he has divorced, Mike sees red flags but also a chance to find some purpose to his continued existence.  

There are a couple obvious problems that I want to discuss early and get out of the way. The dialogue in the two set up scenes is not good and the performances by the two leads live down to that quality. The film starts to feel like it is just conveniently setting up the road trip for us without bothering to make the characters that inspire it feel believable. The "antagonists" in the movie are the kid's Mother and her boyfriends and entourage. They are also not very believable, in fact there is one moment that may cause a spit take from the audience. But...once Clint and the kid connect, the picture is on much steadier grounds and the characters begin to feel more as if this is a story worth telling. Young Eduardo Minett is a slightly more natural actor than his counterpart in "Gran Torino" was, but both performances feel a little amateurish. The character of Rafo does start to grow on us, in spite of some adolescent faults that are irritating early on. 

The connection between the man and the boy is of course the main point of the story, but there are some surprising detours along the way, including some time spent in a small Mexican town and the people of that town. In particular, the two fugitives, find a stronger familial bond then they have experienced in a long time. This interlude is the strongest part of the story and will make you want to forget what has been set up and instead settle down with the possibilities that are now presented to the man and boy.  Eastwood's directing style which has always focused more on character than cinematic flamboyance, seems a perfect match for this section of the movie. There is some gentle humor and only a little tension during these sequences. Once they hit the road again, there is an opportunity for Clint to do some basic action that is still acceptable for his age.  The tension in his film "The Mule" from a couple of years ago was mirrored almost exactly when a couple of federal Mexican police pull over the two and we get some sly dialogue that apes the earlier film.

Admittedly, Clint may be a decade past where he could pull this off without difficulty. Still I think his performance here works. The romantic elements of the picture have little to do with sexual attraction and instead focus on the sorts of qualities that people really should be looking for in one another. There is a conundrum built into the mission when we get a plot point revel later in the story. Mike will not be able to resolve it, but he has prepared young Rafo well enough to be able to figure his way out of the issue when it comes up, sometime after our movie ends.

The film will have to make due with an older audience because the things that draw in the typical movie crowd these days are largely missing from this. No real gunfights, barely any fisticuffs, no action scenes per se and a romantic relationship between characters that could be their grandparents. This may be a film that works with Warner's HBO Max/Day and date simultaneous release. I hope older audiences will go out to see the movie, but if you can't bring yourself to do that, click the watch button and enjoy an efficient little drama that starts off shaky but finishes well. 

Richard Jewell

Let's get the film's big criticism right up front. The screenwriter and director are accused of slandering the name of the dead journalist who first publicly pointed a finger at Richard Jewell as the Olympic Bomber. Kathy Scruggs as portrayed by Olivia Wilde in the film, was a hard charging, not very bashful crime reporter who was looking for a "scoop" so to speak in the case that took place in the town she worked in. The irony of a journalist being besmirched by innuendo in a piece of  dramatic entertainment, when in a newspaper she did the same thing to an innocent man is not lost on most of us. The inference that she offered sex for a tip to an FBI agent is a fictional speculation of how she obtained this inside information. She never revealed her source, and in fact was nearly jailed for refusing to do so by a judge.  It is reported that she was a somewhat wild figure in the confluence of police and journalists on her beat. The screenwriter put two and two together and came up with a dramatic tool to show us how she might have done it. Miss Scruggs has been dead for 18 years so it is legally not possible to slander her. Richard Jewell was publicly accused by her stories, without anything more than a piece of gossip, and he was alive to be roasted by the ensuing firestorm. Let's suppose for a moment that the come on from Miss Scruggs was left out of the film, would what happened to Richard Jewell be any less tragic? No, but the character of the reporter would have no way of claiming to have an informant. That is a plot hole that should not exist in a well told story. It is a two minute scene in a film that more than two hours in length. People judging the movie based on this is disproportionate.

Having set that aside for the moment, the film itself is very effective at recalling the time and place of the events depicted. There is a substantial opening act that shows us who Richard Jewell was. He seems to have been overly enthusiastic in his pursuit of doing right. The campus security job he has is lost because he does what is asked of him but it conflicts with what is within his scope. You don't get the impression that he is motivated by power or the notion that he is in control, in other words he is not the "asshole" that he is warned not to become. He just wants to follow procedure and have people be protected. He continues to believe in what he sees as being right.

Anyone in a position of authority is likely to ruffle some feathers. It is easy to make an inference that a police officer is getting off on their power, especially when you are the one on the other end. I know I have felt that way a couple of times in casual contact with police. It goes the other way as well, people instinctively react to the perceived power of the police. The idea that there is a profile and you are being judged by that is a reality. The accuracy of such a profile still needs to be verified, and this film shows the FBI struggling to fulfill their own prophesy. The trailer lays out the problem here immediately, the two most powerful forces in the world are basically trying to nail Jewell for something he did not do.

Anyone watching the political scene these days will get flashes of deja vu because this stuff goes on constantly today. The FBI seems to have a number of troublesome issues that have been disclosed over the last fifty years, and the political element has been one that continues to be prevalent. The media is a little sensitive about being called out when they are indulging in speculation about the facts. The righteousness of journalists can't change the truth, sometimes they get it wrong. This was certainly one of those places.

Clint Eastwood continues to be one of the best directors working in Hollywood today. This story builds very effectively and we don't even get to the bombing until the second act. The section where all of the attack plays out is effectively staged and there is real tension as the bomb is discovered and the authorities, including Jewell try to deal with it. This sequence shows how Richard Jewell's strong desire to be a law enforcement officer is a good thing. His insistence on following the protocols probably saved dozens of lives, which makes his subsequent vilification all the more unjust. Sure the FBI needs to follow every lead, but to ignore exculpatory information, in pursuit of a profile that is thin to begin with is preposterous.  The fact that the journalist is shown to believe this well before the bureau is an attempt to rehabilitate her character as well.

Sam Rockwell continues to show that he is a leading actor in a character actors clothes. He plays the attorney defending Jewell as the professional skeptic he needed to be. He brings the rage that the deferential suspect seems incapable of displaying. At times that disgust has to be directed at his client who seems programmed to sabotage himself at every turn. Paul Walter Hauser deserves accolades for not only resembling Jewell but for showing us the hopes, and frustrations of the title character. We can see that he is flawed, but Hauser makes him sympathetic at every turn, even when he does the stupid things his attorney advises against. Kathy Bates has one scene that presents some histrionics but she still undersells the moment so her character remains real and completely sympathetic. Jewell's Mother is collateral damage in this process, another example of how the great forces of the law and press can grind someone down indirectly.

Much is being made about the lack of success for this film at the moment. If you are skipping it because it seems too political, you are making a mistake. It simply points out the real danger that anyone, regardless of their politics could fall into. If the controversy about the presentation of the journalist discourages you, remember that it is a film, and with dramatization some narrative tools work, whether we believe they are fair or not. There are some great performances and a compelling story here, don't skip it because of misdirected desire for purity. Story telling is what movies are about, and this one tells a hell of a story, and does so well.

The Mule

The man is 88 years old and still working hard to make good films. I skipped the first of his 2018 movies, the poorly reviewed "15:17 to Paris". I was initially interested in seeing it, but the reviews were so bad that even the idea of the actual heroes playing themselves was not enough to induce me. This film does not any gimmick to it, it simply has the one essential plus that could over power any doubts; Clint is acting in the movie. In addition to directing, which has been his main focus for the last decade, he has come out of semi-retirement as on on-screen presence to deliver a performance to potentially cap off his amazing career.

It's unlikely that he will receive Awards attention, he will be stereotyped as playing a character that he is, an old man. That character can also be seen as not to distinct from Walt in "Grand Torino", a man who today's generation would see as a racist because of the generation he grew up in. He is also likely to be ignored because he has crossed some lines that politically are Hollywood landmines. Regardless of whether he gets some professional accolades, I'm willing to give him some personal ones. For most of his career, he has played steel willed characters with a streak of sardonic humor. He keeps the humor for this part but adds some personal weaknesses and doubts. A lot like his character in "Million Dollar Baby", Earl, the ninety year old drug mule in this film, struggles to connect with family and sees the most selfish impulses as the easiest ones to choose. His stubbornness is the real reason the title describes him. Earl has always done things his own way, and the fact that it might inconvenience his cartel employers is one lesson he has trouble learning.

The fun and personable aspects of Earl's character are shown in the early scenes of his horticulturalist success, and later in the film as he parties with the drug lords. Clint manages to make a flinty old man a subject of amusement and charm. At the same time, we see that he recognizes some of his faults. There is an opening scene where he should be reminded of his own daughter's wedding, and he brushes it off without a second thought. Towards the end of the film, we get to see that he can't do that anymore. He sincerely wants to be there for his mostly ignored family. The facial expressions on his phone call with his granddaughter are contained looks that are appropriate for the character and the film. When Clint plays against Diane Wiest as his former wife, you can see the frustration she feels, but the aura of sadness and realization and defensiveness that Earl feels is palatable.  There is a slightly manufactured scene where Earl comes across his counterpart, a younger version of himself, someone who is driven to succeed but may be doing so at the expense of his family. As he offers advice, the voice contains the weariness that should tell the younger man that this is a man with the kind of experience to learn from.

Although this is a family drama, the crime elements are barely in second place. We care about this head strong, recklessly casual nonagenarian. He jokes with the guys he is taking the drugs from, and we laugh as he struggles to figure out texting, or makes ethnically insensitive jokes with the wrong guys. You will almost certainly smile when Dean Martin is crooning and the gang is all a part of it, but when the timetable is upset or the actions of a uptight handler threaten Earl, you will feel tension and that is exactly the kind of thing that a director like Eastwood knows. He plays a old man, in over his depth, who is trying to get by on the same charm that works with his VA buddies and his friends, but we know that that is not the audience he is playing to, and disaster is on the horizon.

The cast is thick with talent, Bradley Cooper, Michael Pena, Lawrence Fishburne and Andy Garcia are all in small but valuable roles. Diane Wiest has only a few scenes but she shows again that she is one of the most talented character actors working. She is twenty years younger than Clint but you will not sense that difference in their performances. The cast that plays the drug cartel drones is chosen for their looks but they also are capable. Eastwood has picked an interesting story, put together an involving drama, and turned in a effective performance and he has done it as he himself is approaching Earl's age. We should all be so talented and full of ambition. 

Sully

Tom Hank"s character, the real life hero Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, has a fortune cookie fortune that he looks at in one scene of this film. "Better a delay than a disaster".  I feel a little bit as if this describes my relationship with the movie, I wanted to see it but put it off for almost a month. After the screening, I felt as if it would have been a disaster if I'd missed this movie. This is a film and a story right up my alley. It is a true life drama, with a humble hero and a group of people who all did whatr they were supposed to do. The outcome is one of the amazing stories of modern aviation.

Having recently listened to a lengthy podcast in which the work of director Clint Eastwood was somewhat criticized, I may have lowered my expectations a bit. I did think "Jersey Boys" was a misfire but "American Sniper" was an effective film about the Iraq war and the toll it took on multiple people. It was dramatically shot and there are some incredibly tense scenes in it. This film is directed in a straightforward manner as is most of Eastwood's work. The fact that the near disaster at the center of the story remains clear and coherent is mostly a result of choices the director made about how to film it. One criticism that came up was that the side stories that explored some of Sully's background were confusing in time and story placement, well I did not find that to be the case at all. [That is mostly the screenwriter's responsibility]. There is a little bit of ambiguity about the process of the NTSB and how long that hearing process took, but that is hardly confusing to the story.

I did think that the script went a bit of a ways to create drama from the investigation but you have to have a little dramatic license to give the film a narrative backbone. The real themes of this film are about self doubt and doing your job. Until Arron Eckhart and Tom Hanks know what the voice recorder and aviation data reveal, there is enough doubt for even a confident man to wonder if something else could have been done. "Sully" and co-pilot Jeff Skiles knew they did the right things but only from the inside. There is plenty of PTSD to go around between them, but except for some nightmares about what might have happened if they had acted differently, we all feel confident as well.

The other theme of this movie was well expressed at the end by Captian Sullenberger when he deferred credit. It was not he alone who was the X factor. Every crew member did their job well. The cabin crew remained calm as they prepared the passengers, the passengers followed directions and helped each other, the ferry captains acted immediately and saved lives by doing so, the water rescue tem from the NYPD was in place and doing their jobs as well. I recommended another Aaron Eckhart film from a few years ago based on the same premise. "Battle L.A." may not be a great movie, but it was great at showing how when people work together, and do their jobs to the best of their ability, the outcome is more likely than not to be success.

Hanks and Eckhart both are low key and credible as the professionals who made a difference that day on the Hudson and above. They also rock those mustaches that the real heroes appear to favor. Laura Linney as Sully's wife does not get to do much more than talk on the phone, but it worked pretty well as a dramatic device, especially that first call after the landing. The technical crew who shot the effects and then put together a set to work on in the water are deserving of some respect as well. This was a very realistic depiction of the "forced water landing".  In the long run, the movie does not have deep messages to impart to us, it just gives us a good condensed version of events that we can marvel at and appreciate, as we look at real people who deserve to be called heroes, even if they don't see themselves that way. 

City Heat: On the Forgotten Film Cast

Some of you may not follow the 30 Years On Project, so you may have missed the link to a podcast I participated in recently. From 1984, "City Heat" with Clint and Burt. Just click on the poster and have a listen.

Jersey Boys

Let's do a checklist to start with.

Do I like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons?      Yes
Do I like Clint Eastwood as a Director?                Yes
Did I like the stage version of Jersey Boys?          Yes
Do I love musical films?                                        Yes
Did I like the Movie Version of the story?             For the most part

For the record, my wife loved the movie and does not have any of the reservations that I have except for one. I'll tell you what that is at the end of this post, but for most of the film I had a great time and enjoyed the songs, staging and look of the movie. It does lack something and I'm having a hard time articulating it but I will try. Some musicals can expand and fill a screen with color and dance and energy as a way of opening up the stage bound version of the play. An intimate story like this suffers a little from being so close on the characters and by keeping the structure of having each of the "Seasons" narrate different parts of the story, Eastwood and the screenwriters (who also did the book of the musical) remind us that this is a theatrical piece more than a film. The energy of a movie is different and the transitions and storytelling work in completely different ways than in a stage musical. The reverse is true as well, "Beauty and the Beast" as a film flowed like a stream over a perfect hillside and into our hearts. The stage version feels like it is a wave engulfing us in it's musical tropes. It is a different experience and for me not as satisfying.

"Jersey Boys" the movie tells the same story of the rise of a group of New Jersey delinquents to pop stardom and the tribulations they go through. The songs are worked into the story as part of the backstage process but the songs don't tell the story as in a traditional musical, they just highlight moments from the story. It worked on stage pretty well because it is done in a minimalist style. The mind's eye fills in the blank spaces and connects the dots. In a film, all of that is done for you and the songs stand out as non organic parts of the film. They are not what the story is about. This is not a hodgepodge "Frankenstein" creation like "Rock of Ages" or "Mama Mia", which strech songs that already exist to fit them into a story. These songs are distinct and could be performed at any point in the story. They only advance the story by their success or style, not by their subject.(The one exception being "Oh What a Night", which is tied into an event early in their careers but the song came later in the history of the band).

The integration of the songs into the film is smooth and the staging in several scenes is excellent. The first performance of "Sherry" was choreographed in the style of pop groups at the time and looked terrific. The Ed Sullivan performance was also a standout scene, it was another one that advanced the story but the song mattered not. The staged version in a nightclub of the debut of "Can't Take My Eyes off of You" was also special. When the big band horn section comes in with a curtain revel, it sends chills through the audience on screen and in the theater. The end credits seemed to have the things that a musical needs, choreography from the whole cast, a willingness to suspend disbelief and everyone sings. If the whole movie had been like that, it would have been different enough from the play that it would stand out. It feels like they played it pretty safe by sticking closely to the style of the play and that';s where I think my reservations are for the most part.

The great Christopher Walken appears as a mob connected guardian angel, but that old song and dance guy does not get to do much until the credit sequence. I assume the guys in the lead roles are the actors from the Broadway version of the play because I did not recognize any of them and they are all talented singers and performers. Their acting styles seem to emphasize stage theatrics more than film acting. The reunion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction is a good example of what I mean. They let staging, costuming and body language do the acting. The makeup conveys the passage of time rather than their facial expressions. That reservation that I mentioned that my wife shared with me has to do with the make-up. I did not see Clint's much derided film on J.Edgar Hoover, but the biggest criticism I remember reading was of the make-up job on Leo. I guess Clint is not very focused on this aspect of the film because the make-up work here was not very convincing. Even though it is not supposed to last long since we flashback almost immediately to the younger versions of the actors, I think the depiction of them as older needs to be convincing, and it was not.

All in all I liked the movie but I can't enthusiastically say I loved it. There are moments that impressed me but there were several times when the picture was just not working the way a film should. I applaud Clint for trying his hand at a musical. He doesn't embarrass himself, but I suspect that the remake of "A Star is Born" that he has been connected to will probably need more than Beyonce to get made.