Review of West Side Story (1961) by Sean D — 16 Jan 2016

The story of the West. Westside. An island. New York City. The borough of Manhattan. This is a story of racism more than anything else. Puerto Rican immigrants in a gang fight over territory, more specifically a basketball court from the looks of it. This doesn't have anything on Grove Street vs The Ballas and at least were two different teams of blacks that didn't like each other.

This story is a mess. The opening is awkward and dumb that it doesn't make any sense. You think the lines are trying to spell out west side story, but they just make a 1D representation of the island. The opening is over 5 minutes long, and if it wasn't so dragged out, it would have been cool because of what happened at the end. Then the next 20 are so boring.

Okay, it's a musical. Nothing makes sense and everyone has issues right? But for a film about gang wars and racism, the young 20 year old's come off as complete morons dancing around and seemingly intentionally missing each other when they are trying to fight as if this is So You Think You Can Dance? decades before reality television and dance shows were all the rage. Almost like this film, sets the precedent for the subgenre to come.

Then people die, people get angry, and more death occurs. The film goes downhill. Oh and don't forget the most important part of the film, certainly not the coming-of-age morons being racist. But like every other American film, let's put a massive emphasis on love. Again, was this really about intergender love or racism again? Maybe both. It ends up becoming the most significant aspect of the film.

The film does get better around those parts. This is a weird musical film because the singing is too over the top and becomes opera level and I came to find out that not all the actors sing and act, as in, it's lip-synched with another actor to come in for the singing parts. That kind of kills it for me and heavily defeats the purpose of a musical.

Would I recommend this long and drawn out 2 and a half hour film to somebody? Yes, but watch it with a few people and decide if it's right for you or you may agree with me and decide the plot is poorly executed and the film is dumb and one of the least good musicals out there, besides what the critics say. This film is anything but fresh for me.

When it comes to a film like this, and not liking it, I know I'm going to get a lot of slack from faults, like how could I not like it or what's wrong with me? The fact of the matter is, it's not for everyone and it's really lackluster if you think about it, or it just didn't age well.