Review of West Side Story (1961) by Cameron J — 05 May 2012

It's "Romeo and Juliet", updated for the hip kids of the new day, or at least new for the '60s, so it would appear as though Baz Luhrman was only the second guy to take a stab at hipping up Shakespeare's classic vision. Outside of the fact that it is more faithful to the dialogue and subject matter, as well as the better film (That's right, I said it), the only difference in "Romeo + Juliet" is the fact that it isn't a musical, and even then, it's pretty close, what with all of the obnoxious tunes it was blaring into your head. Still, Mr. Luhrman was saving up his own music for "Moulin Rouge!"; and besides, although he's about as good as an actor of today can get, Leo DiCaprio is certainly no singer, and sure, my only reference point is a deleted scene from "Revolutionary Road" in which he wasn't so much singing, as much as he was just shyly repeating people that sang "Happy Birthday", though I heard enough seriousness in his voice to know that he's definately no Ewan McGregor when it comes to hidden singing skill. Okay, getting back to this decades older film that I'm supposed to be talking about, these kids, however, decidedly know what they're doing when it comes to singing, and with this musical also being a somewhat loose adaptation of Shakespeare's classic, I suppose you could say that this was to "Romeo and Juliet" what "The Lion King" was to "Hamlet" (And yet, we work our way back to relatively contemporary cinema). It's certainly to "Romeo and Juliet" what Kenneth Branagh was to "Hamlet", in that this film also outstays its welcome. Of course, the difference is that this film's absurd length doesn't quite work as well as it did for "Hamlet", and that mamma-jamma was an hour-and-a-half longer. Seriously though, although this film will have you tappin' your toes and waving your hands on occasion, after a while, you're going to be waving your hands mainly to check your watch, which isn't to say that there's not enough in the film that, well, at least kept me from giving up.

As I'll get into later, more musical numbers fall flat than expected, but when the musical aspects pick up, especially during that so-amazing-I-have-to-mention-it "Gee, Officer Krupke" performance, they really take off, powered by particularly inspired writing and singing, complemented by Leonardo Bernstein's always inspired score. Still, again, the musical numbers hit-or-miss, while what is consistent in excellence is the staging of the show behind the music, with top-notch dance choreography throwing you for a real loop, especially with the razor-sharp snap of Thomas Stanford's lively editing and Daniel L. Fapp's elaborate cinematography concepts. Still, even when the music dies down, the film has enough of its moments, particularly when focus lands on the boys' side of the story, not just because it's during those moment where the dialogue, while still spotty here and there, is at its most snappy, but because it's there where the performances are at their sharpest. Sure, the acting bar isn't raised terribly high, due to limited material and - as I'll get into later - performances that I'm kind of glad weren't given more material to mess up, but on the whole, at least the actors know how to keep things going like men; dancing, hopping, snapping men. Sure, some performances only go so long without falling back into overacting, yet each higher up male performance really charms, particularly such significants as the effectively antagonistic George Chakiris and Simon Oakland or the reasonably compelling male leads, Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn. The film has a fair deal of genuinely inspired moments, and that's enough to raise this film well past the danger zone. However, for every moment of accomplishment within the picture, there are many more moments of misstep, and while those moments aren't intense enough to send this film crashing down, they still land striking blows to the legs of this foundation, leaving the film underwhelming, underinspired and overrated, or at least as far the music is concerned, because although there are some tunes that make themselves worthy of remembering, or just plain knock you flat, there are quite a few numbers that knock you flat, but this time, for a nap.

With all my complimenting of certain musical numbers and my all around praise of the consistently excellent dancing, a lot of these musical numbers, surprisingly, fall a little flat, with quite a few pulling a fair couple of amateur mistake, as well as gaping enough lapses in engagement value that leave these faulty musical numbers to, after a while, go completely devoid of steam, especially during the latter acts, where they really throw off the momentum of the deeper points, especially during that performance of "Cool", which is not only notable for being extremely detrimental to the pacing, but for being quite possibly the one genuinely terrible song, though certainly not even close to the only underwhelming one. Of course, I'd rather be bored by the musical numbers than tortured by the acting, for although many of our male performers do deliver on enough charisma to get you by, many of the performances are weak, especially on the very significant side of the women, most of whom are weak, and some of whom are utterly unpalatable, whether it be the comes-and-goes, but never gone long enough Susan Oakes or most of the players of the Puerto Rican characters, with the American pretenders delivering accents that make Dick van Dyke's English accent sound as excellent as Chris Plummer's, and the actual Puerto Rican actresses overplaying their parts and overact to the point of being somehow less believable as Puerto Rican. One of the few women that aren't overacting is leading lady Natalie Wood, who is still pretty weak, with a lack of spirit and presence that goes into making someone an engaging lead, leaving both the Maria Nunez character and her story-defining relationship with Richard Beymer's Jimmy Bryant character to go hardly compelling. Still, it's not the rest of the film is all that engaging either, because although the film hits noble points of ambition towards emotional resonance, whether it be the poor dialogue or simply faulty direction by Robert Wise, the film falls short on consistent intrigue and emotional resonance, and you can not afford to fall flat on that if you're going to take on an adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet", let along one that runs over two-and-a-half hours, and unnecessarily, at that. The first maybe just over ten minutes of the film consist of really nothing more than a stop-start score tune over the gangs hopping around and snapping before they get into a hardcore frolicking boogie brawl for way too long with a scarce amount of dialogue, and see, the funny thing about the opening is that it's only the beginning. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it only gets gayer from there; ...oh yeah, and it also continues to pad things out with overdrawn sequences and over explored piece of subject matter, rendering the film as overlong as it is bland. Really, the film isn't bad, being helped by its fair share of moments, yet on the whole, this is unexpected and unrelenting through and through, with limited moments of pick-up and many a moment of let-down, and while there's still enough pick-up and still not enough let-down to completely destroy the film, I've got to say that this is as fine an example of a highly overrated classic film as any.

At the end of show, the film narrowly escapes total disaster on the winds of Leonard Bernstein's - pardon the choice of words - "snappy" score, as well as many more snappy pieces of dialogue than terribly cheesy pieces, the occasional inspired musical number and consistently excellent musical production that pump as much livliness into the film as the reasonable amount of charisma within most of the male cast, yet the film still goes plagued by often underwhelming musical performances, as well as mostly weak, if not just plain embarassingly awful acting and a considerable lack of intrigue amidst overdrawn, bland storytelling that borders on monotonous, thus leaving "West Side Story" to trip as a passable, yet ultimately unrewarding bore of a highly overrated misstep on the filmography of Robert Wise.

2/5 - Mediocre.