In 1983 reporter Maggie Foley (Ellen Barkin) goes searching for the members of a 60s rock group that is becoming popular again--Eddie and the Cruisers. Eddie (Micahel Pare) died in 1964--but his body was never found. She talks to ex-member Frank Ridgeway (Tom Berenger) and discovers there are some tapes from their last recording session that were never released. They seem to have disappeared but someone is looking for them--and it might be Eddie! A decent idea totally ruined by a boring script with some truly terrible dialogue. There are some good actors here--Berenger, Barkin, Pare and Helen Schneider--but they can't do much with this script. The saving grace is some good acting and the music. All the songs were done by John Cafferty and his Beaver Brown Band and they are good-- especially "On the Dark Side" which became a belated hit one year after this came out. This isn't a terrible movie--it's just overly predictable and badly written. This was an understandable bomb in theatres in 1983 but became a hit on cable the following year. It also made Cafferty and his band popular for a few years. Worth catching for the music. Also it's kind of funny seeing Pare badly lip-sync to Cafferty who sounds NOTHING like him! A 6.
Review of Eddie and the Cruisers
