Review of Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) by Harry W — 12 Jul 2015

Featuring a truly unorgettable soundtrack and a sense of nostalgic spirit, Eddie and the Cruisers sounded like a captivating tale of music and mystery.

From the beginning of the film we are given the hint that Eddie Wilson was a myseterious enigma who vanished along with his final musical pieces. The narrative mainly consists of two parallel narratives regarding the story about trying to piece together the mystery of Eddie Wilson and the flashbacks that depicted him developing him into passionate rock star. This means that the story flips back and fourth between stylish shots of the titular band jamming and a slow story of discovery, neither of which maintain much to substantiate the narrative. The subtext of the film is touching because there are many themes within the story which really maintain a lot of meaning while the genuine intentions of the film are really good, but the narrative is not intruiging for a long time. Since most of the film is based around trying to piece together the past, it is built on nostalgia more than on a story which genuinely progresses anywhere because there genuinely is just not a lot of territory for it to explore. It is limited solely to the memories of the characters depicted and the conversations they have with each other, but the scripts itself is very cliche and the story is very slow which means that maintaining consistent interest is a struggle. Audiences may be lit up by the flair of the titular band's performances, but beneath that the narrative is dull and is burdened by a structure which cesperately attempts to take a Citizen Kane approach without maintaining the same strong characters that beneftitted such a film. Eddie and the Cruisers is about piecing together the mystery of Eddie Wilson and his missing tapes. The feature ends up limited by its low budget as that limits precisely how much of the story is available to tell, and the script is not there to salvage that unfortunately. Eddie and the Cruisers could have been a powerful examination of what music is all about as the director's ambitions were to "get all my feelings about the music of the last 30 years of rock music into it." while the themes of Eddie Wilson not being appreciated as a musician in his own time are of clear relevance. Unfortunately, execution of these concepts does not end up grasping the level of meaning it wants to.

Eddie and the Cruisers begs for comparisons to Citizen Kane for many reasons, and through that comparison it is easy to analyze its faults. Citizen Kane was about determing what precisely Rosebud was as it was the answer to everything about Charles Foster Kane. But we gained an understanding of that through both the concept of Rosebud and a reconstructed story about the man where we see him grow and change. Eddie and the Cruisers fails to get into depth about who Eddie Wilson was as a person or precisely what his passion for music meant to anyone. By the end of the film, Eddie Wilson remains either an unsanswered enigma or a thinly sketched character. Perhaps both depending on the auidence's interpretations, and though I felt meaning in the film when I was younger and more naiive, this time around I simply found the experience to be a blank one. The visual style of the film is basic, the narrative is simple and poorly structured, and the characters are not meaningful as they should be.

The single thing that renders Eddie and the Cruisers an unforgettable experience is the soundtrack. The soundtrack to Eddie and the Cruisers features some of the most groovy tunes I have ever heard. Even those turned away from the simplistic narrative in Eddie and the Cruisers should understand the valuable work of John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band. The film's ambition is largely to capture the hot blooded passion of rock n' roll in the 1960's scene, and with John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band helming the work they deliver a breakthrough effort with unforgettable songs like "Wild Summer Nights" and "On The Dark Side". Yet nothing compares to their most beautiful piece, "Tender Years".When the band first began to play Tender Years, I began to feel so many things .I was temporarily hypnotized by the wonderfully beautiful melancholy of such a groovy love song, and so many things going on in my life suddenly made sense to me. That song is the greatest thing that ever came from the production of this film, and it single handily makes the experience worth having.

Though the script in Eddie and the Cruisers is thin, the cast of the film are not without their skills even though they are limited.

Michael Pare puts in his finest performance to date as Eddie Wilson. The man is not a brilliant actor, but he does what he does best in Eddie and the Cruisers because his screen time is limited predominantly to shots of him lip-syncing the voice of John Cafferty or just standing around, and whenever he does that you can see the hot blooded passion in his eyes. He has the ideal getup of a great musician and a convincing if understated sense of spirit which is captured simply through his face and the way he physically engages with the music of the film. Michael Pare captures Eddie Wilson's hot blooded spirit very well for what the material limits him to, and the stare in his eyes is hard to forget.

Tom Berenger is also a welcome presence. Tom Berenger captures a subtle essence of poetry in his role due to how he depicts Frank Ridgeway's complicated relationship with Eddie Wilson, reminding us of how his once determined spirit died when The Cruisers did. He doesn't honestly get too much to do, but he does have some passionate moments and his efforts are certainly worth the admiration. Tom Berenger's subtle effort in Eddie and the Cruisers makes him a sympathetic character and feeds more meaning to the story, and he speaks of Eddie Wilson with a true sense of passion.

Matthew Laurance also makes a decent dramatic effort as Sal Amato.

Ultimately, Eddie and the Cruisers has the best intentions and an unforgettable soundtrack, but the underlying themes are buried beneath a blank and poorly structured story which is short on script and extremely slow.