This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Overrated and overhyped

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

If you don't mind the anachronistic approach the movie takes it can be fairly entertaining. The music is upbeat and designed to move your feet, but the whole time I listened to the Cruisers of 1963 I couldn't help but think about the actual music of the era bearing no relationship at all to what the band was playing. OK, it was mentioned that their music was ahead of it's time, but it actually took twenty years for Springsteen, Southside Johnny and John Cafferty to make their mark with the Asbury Park sound. This movie had it up and running during the Dion and Elvis era, and even before the Beatles led the British Invasion to the States which occurred a year later. So that part of the movie didn't work for me.But if you were born in the Eighties and watch this film today, not having the perspective of growing up with the music of the Sixties probably won't make much difference. The hunt for the missing 'Season of Hell' recordings drives the story as former members of the Cruisers make an attempt to relive past glory without their leader, who mysteriously disappeared in a car wreck following a recording session. When Doc Robbins (Joe Pantoliano) was exposed by Frank (Tom Berenger) for running the Eddie scam on Joann (Helen Schneider) it solved one mystery, but who was it that went around wrecking the rooms of the other band members looking for the missing tapes? That was never adequately addressed, and if it was Doc himself, he got a much bigger pass for being a jerk than the story allowed.At least in keeping with the spirit of the Sixties, there's a handful of tunes like 'My Little Runaway" and 'Run Around Sue' to keep things anchored in the proper time frame, and that song about Betty Lou and her new pair of shoes would have been right up Jerry Lee Lewis's alley. I see the movie has it's base of fans on this board, including some who regard it as one of the best music films ever. But writing today, when I plug the picture into my list of 'Concert and Music Movies' I've reviewed here on IMDb and run the list in ranking order, it comes out #45 out of fifty seven films. That places it one notch above the Four Seasons flick "Jersey Boys" - who would have come up with that coincidence?

SPOILER ALERT I don't understand all the 10-star ratings. The movie is OK but the problem I have is with the music. First of all, Eddie is still stuck in the '50s, with his tough guy look, cut-off t-shirt, and music. The big problem I have is that the music from the 2nd (unreleased) album is so '80s! How do you make this story believable when it purports how ahead of his time Eddie was, going from horn-based frat rock to something considered "weird sounds" and progressive for the time. No way, I don't buy it. The writers of this film should have made that supposed transition of his music (they called it being "ahead of his time") something harder but still with a 60s mindset, lyrically and musically. Wow, what a stretch, Eddie has an 80s sound! The movie really portrays Eddie as a one-hit wonder, with that annoying "On The Dark Side" constantly popping up every 30 minutes or so. Lastly, the unreleased album was called "Seasons in Hell"? Come on, that is no 60s title! What's next, Eddie has long hair and bell bottoms too because "he was ahead of his time?" Why is everyone worshipping this one-hit wonder? They could have made these aspect of the movie a bit more believable.

Every time I watch this movie(and I do - over and over), the scene where Frank introduces his first song to the band - nearly whispering it in a high, cracking falsetto: "...from out of the shadows she walks like a dre-eam...", and while the other band-members giggle and squirm as though they're in 8th grade and just saw Mary Ellen's tidy-whities when the wind blew her skirt up - Eddie's silencing them and kindly guiding Frankie The Wordman's stumbling efforts toward something that can really get your blood moving("This is Rock 'n Roll!" he exclaims joyfully)always makes me marvel at the unexpectedly-good acting coming out of pretty boy Michael Pare'. I always think the same thing: 'How did Martin Davidson get that out of him? Why, in every other movie I've seen him in, did other directors fail to tap into that?' When you see this movie, you absolutely know that it isn't Pare's fault that he's so wooden elsewhere...because if he can do it here - he can do it anywhere, right? With the right director, the answer is yes. The proof is here; right here, in his very authentic portrayal of an artist trapped in the too-confining skin of a 60's rock star(Eddie: "If we can't be great, then there's no point in ever making music again!"). But don't just watch this movie for Pare'. Everything works. Everybody rocks. It all goes together just like...yeah, I'm gonna say it: words and music.

Plot in a nutshell: Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare) was the lead singer of "Eddie & The Cruisers", an on the rise rock band in the early 1960s that played late 1970s/1980s style music. They cut one successful album, "Tender Years", which featured the hit song "On The Dark Side", and it looked as though Eddie (and his band) had overnight fame & fortune almost within his grasp, but Eddie could not see beyond his own arrogance to recognize and accept the fact that if he wanted to be in the spotlight, he would have to play by certain rules, and at times could mistreat his band mates, even lyricist/piano player Frank "Word Man" Ridgeway (Tom Berenger). Following the death of their original sax player and the rejection of their 2nd album, "A Season In Hell", rejected because the style of music was dismissed as little more than "weird noises", Eddie apparently committed suicide, driving his car off the bay docks... but since his body was never found, an urban legend formed around him. Years later, in the early 1980s, Eddie's music has experienced a resurgence in popularity & appreciation when his old record label re-releases the Tender Years album, and a debate is sparked as to what happened to the lost performance tapes and recordings of the "Season in Hell" album. Then someone starts ransacking former band members homes in a desperate search for those tapes... could it be Eddie? In the midst of this, more about the band's tragic downfall comes to light.Major Spoiler: at the end we see the older, long lost Eddie Wilson alone in the streets watching as his lost music is played on a big store TV; he smiles serenely, proud to know that his work, misunderstood and rejected all those years ago, is finally being heard, and disappears into the night.All in all, a well made, well acted film that speaks for all those rock singers who almost had it but for whatever reason couldn't hold on. Michael Pare (in the role that should have made him a star) is well cast as Eddie Wilson, the charismatic but self-destructive rock singer, though the true star is Tom Berenger as the lyricist who must uncover the truth of it all.Excellent showcase for the music of John Cafferty (Eddie's singing voice) and the Beaver Brown Band.