Clint Eastwood film, a bit flawed, though fairly faithful to the stage show right down to the singing cast members. I've seen the show twice, and it's my fave live stage show, it has drama, a massive catalogue of great songs and a pretty good True Life Story presented in an odd Direct-to-audience way that works well as a show. If anything, the film is too faithful, a lot of songs get cut or condensed to highlight the drama more, but I'm not sure that's the way to go. The first 20 minutes could have been summarised in a few keys scenes (with a younger cast! The actors really can't convince anyone they are 16 to 19) and just concentrated on the rise to success and disintegration of the group owing a million to loan sharks/mafia/taxman drama enough in that.

 

I appreciate Eastwood's sticking by the cast members, but he prob should have gone with younger actors miming to the actual Four Seasons records and picked up the pace, it's too slow. The beauty of the stage show is it's in short segments interspersed with the songs, and the songs are central. The songs aren't central to the film, and in a musical they ought to be. 6 out of 10 (10 out of 10 for the songbook)

Would see this but 15 certificate so I will wait for DVD