***Down By The Shore Everything’s Alright?-James Golfdofini’s Down The Shore

 

DVD Review   

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Down The Shore, starring James Golfdofini, 2011

I suppose ever since the television series The Sopranos (in which the lead actor here, James Golfdofini, played a huge role), the reality show Jersey Housewives, and the devastation caused a couple of years ago by Hurricane Sandy Jersey and the Jersey shore that place south of New York City (and populated by many denizens of that city fleeing the hazards and high costs) are up for grabs in the cinematic department. I will not speak of other Jersey connections like the political situation there of late or of Bruce Springsteen’s Jersey Girl that immediately came to mind when I first read a synopsis of the film under review, Down The Shore. But you can, and you also can visualize the backdrop of that same shore in this film which had been  actually shot in that locale.

That however may be the best thing about this film though since the combination of a Jersey Shore institution, an amusement park and that shoreline is what was memorable about the film. Certainly the plotline did not hang together or make sense, or rather seem believable. Let’s see. It seems that drunken amusement park rides owner Bailey (Golfdofini) had a sister with some cash who went to France after finding out she was terminally ill. While there she met and married an amusement park ride owner, Jack, who after she passed away wound up on the Bailey’s Jersey shore working-class house with his sister’s ashes, a deed to a share in the house and plenty of sis’s dough.  From there though the transition is rocky as the Bailey’s past, his best boyhood friend’s Wiley, and Wiley’s wife, Mary, and (and Baily’s ex-girlfriend) stir up the old days to nobody’s benefit. Wiley has turned into a wife-beating crack-head, Bailey is tore between friendship and love, and Wiley is just a bastard. They all share the secrets of the past, a past that included murder, father murder, which seems to haunt all their actions and relationships with each other. See what I mean standard Jersey Shore stuff set against the rugged beauty of the shoreline and the seen-better-days town. Stay home and listen to Springsteen’s Jersey Girl, that one says it all.