Francesco Castelluccio changed his name to Frankie Valli and made it a household one in the early 1960's. As the lead singer of the acclaimed Four Seasons, he and his group scored nearly 30 Top 40 hits before Valli went on to bag another nine as a solo entertainer. Not bad for a high-school drop out from Jersey. And it's that can-do American spirit that gave rise to the highly successful, Tony Award winning musical, Jersey Boys which has now made its way to the screen.

Sadly, routine telling under surprisingly formulaic direction from Clint Eastwood has rendered this adaption overwhelmingly lifeless. Given the mafia-tinged background, the toe-tapping foreground and the sizeable angst that went with the Seasons' gargantuan effort (it's not easy managing the competing needs of ego, family, career and global fandom), you wonder where it all went wrong.

Casting has a large part to play. Electing to revisit the Broadway production means very few of the principles have screen experience - what works on stage seldom transfers easily. While the boys may be eye-catching, they lack the presence of, say, Team Travolta-Walken-Efron who brought such tremendous energy to Hairspray and did so with ease. By contrast to that sprightly number, Jersey Boys is positively comatose. Writers Marshall Brickman and and Rick Elice certainly had their part to play (how can you take such a dramatic story and make it so uninteresting?), as did Eastwood's by-the-numbers approach. Normally a courageous director, he seems woefully miscast himself.

Colour palate and vignette tricks bring a certain production flair, but it's nothing more than a gimmick that certainly can't paper over the film's glaring inadequacies. Eastwood's decision to tell it straight (no interpretation, no song-and-dance numbers, this is no Chicago), we're left with a routine narrative about warring egos and crumbling relationships. As the group records stellar fame, they sing their jukebox hits with all the visual panache of a talk show interlude. The best moment arrives during the closing credits – far too little, far too late. For die hard fans only.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Events Cinemas, George St, Sydney, on 25 June 2014