it really touch to see how many reviewer remember this movie fondly . i just pick up the soundtrack cd last saturday and and after more than twenty year the classic fifty style song with the unique beaver brown sound still hold up . unfortunately and the movie itself be limp and torpid and depressing and shallow . why be the story so weak . at bottom and i think this be really two movie . on one level and in the present and it a realistic and low key look at how some typical working class character deal with disappointment and loss while poignantly cherish memory of the more glamorous past . please do not go and tender year and be exactly what these middle age rocker want to say . and that fine . the movie work best when it almost like a documentary and chart the failure and humiliation of the survive cruiser in late life . listen to sal damato and say and they strike oil in your back yard and all you get be dead tomato . then later that night and he lead his tired and bald band into battle and and the announcer say and the holliday inn be proud to welcome back some jersey boy who really make good and eddie and the cruiser feature sal damato . the irony be that sal triumph depend on living in the past and and keep eddie alive in his music . at the end of the show he pay tribute to eddie and say he as much a part of this band a i be . down the street . . . around the block . . . not far away at all . it hard not to watch that scene with tear in your eye . but the movie try to be another story too . the fifty flashbacks showcase michael pare a the young and brooding and hunky eddie wilson . and uh and that a mistake . michael pare do for fifty tough guy what bela lugosi do for transylvanian count . he take a rich and compel screen archetype and turn it into a corny joke . every dramatic scene he have fall flat he just flex his biceps and look goofy . the script never do give u a reason for eddie attitude and but it more loser or bully than rebel or dreamer . he tend to pick on people like his own band mat rather than challenge big and tough authority figure . a a biopic of a sexy and enigmatic star the movie really get into trouble fast . eddie be just a big lug with a nasty sneer and not a real rebel who have a vision . even his warm over class resentment come off a force and stereotypical . ultimately and the movie lose you because it never explain why eddie disappear and what make him a genius and or what be eat him before he ever become a singer . have they just have eddie stay dead and focus on the middle aged year and it would have be a quieter and good film and but we might not have this killer soundtrack . so it all a bit of a trade off . a other reviewer have mention and the miss tape plot and the unintentionally funny end ( doc . be that you . who out there . ) take all the heat and momentum out of eddie story . so in the end what leave be the soundtrack a genuine rock and roll achievement .