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It's really touching to see how many reviewers remember this movie fondly. I just picked up the soundtrack CD last Saturday, and after more than twenty years the classic Fifties-style songs with the unique Beaver Brown sound still hold up.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the movie itself is limp, torpid, depressing and shallow. Why is the story so weak? At bottom, I think this is really two movies. On one level, in the present, it's a realistic, low key look at how some typical working class characters deal with disappointment and loss while poignantly cherishing memories of the more glamorous past. "Please don't go, tender years," is exactly what these middle aged rockers want to say.<br /><br />And that's fine. The movie works best when it's almost like a documentary, charting the failures and humiliations of the surviving "Cruisers" in later life. Listen to Sal D'Amato, saying, "they strike oil in your back yard and all you get are dead tomatoes." Then later that night, he leads his tired, balding band into battle, and the announcer says, "the Holliday Inn is proud to welcome back some Jersey boys who really made good, Eddie and the Cruisers featuring Sal D'Amato!" The irony is that Sal's triumph depends on living in the past, and keeping Eddie "alive" in his music. At the end of the show he pays tribute to Eddie, saying "he's as much a part of this band as I am. Down the street . . . around the block . . . not far away at all." It's hard not to watch that scene with tears in your eyes.<br /><br />But the movie tries to be another story too. The fifties flashbacks showcase Michael Pare as the young, brooding, hunky Eddie Wilson. And uh, that's a mistake. Michael Pare does for Fifties tough guys what Bela Lugosi does for Transylvanian counts. He takes a rich, compelling screen archetype and turns it into a corny joke. Every dramatic scene he has falls flat -- he just flexes his biceps and looks goofy. The script never does give us a reason for Eddie's "attitude," but it's more loser/bully than rebel/dreamer. He tends to pick on people like his own band mates rather than challenging bigger, tougher authority figures. As a "biopic" of a sexy, enigmatic star the movie really gets into trouble fast. Eddie is just a big lug with a nasty sneer, not a real rebel who has a vision. Even his warmed over class resentments come off as forced and stereotypical.<br /><br />Ultimately, the movie loses you because it never explains why Eddie disappeared, what made him a genius, or what was eating him before he ever became a singer. Had they just had Eddie stay "dead" and focused on the middle aged years, it would have been a quieter, better film, but we might not have this killer soundtrack. So it's all a bit of a trade off. As other reviewers have mentioned, the "missing tapes" plot and the unintentionally funny ending ("Doc? Is that you? Who's out there?")take all the heat and momentum out of Eddie's story. So in the end what's left is the soundtrack -- a genuine rock and roll achievement. |