BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

smatysia A movie that does not come out with huge aspirations. Which is fine. It just wants to tell its little story. Set in and filmed in the working class (or lower) neighborhoods of Dublin, it tells the story of a young entrepreneur who starts a band. Instead of heavy metal or poisonous rap, he/they want to do Sixties soul music, despite their Irishness and whiteness. There is a fair amount of subtle humor. I had neither seen nor heard of any of the actors, but then again, I rarely saw much Irish cinema. I was especially impressed by Angeline Ball, one of the back-up singers. The movie was, well, charming is the word that most comes to mind. You probably have to like that sort of music to like the movie, but if you do, check it out.

SnoopyStyle Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) is a small time hustler selling pirated tapes and T-shirts. Outspan Foster (Glen Hansard) and Derek Scully (Ken McCluskey) ask Jimmy to manage their wedding band. Jimmy declares that they need to be a hard working Soul band. He puts an ad in the papers and it's a parade of wrong music. His Elvis loving dad (Colm Meaney) doesn't get it. Sax playing Dean Fay (Félim Gormley) is the first brought into the band. Billy Mooney (Dick Massey) is the drummer. Jimmy gets Natalie Murphy (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Imelda Quirke (Angeline Ball) and Bernie McGloughlin (Bronagh Gallagher) as the backup singers. After watching a drunken Deco Cuffe (Andrew Strong) sing at the wedding, he gets him as the lead singer. Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy) is the womanizing experienced trumpet player who comes up with their name "The Commitments". He hires the volatile Mickah Wallace (Dave Finnegan) as their security.This is fun. It's great music. The cast is mostly musicians trying their hands at acting. Some of them would become quite interesting. It's based on the first of novelist Roddy Doyle's lower class Barrytown trilogy. It's heart warming and then sadly inevitable. The portrayal of the Irish lower class is one of loving profanity. The one word I would use is life. This movie is full of life. The movie could have ended with something predictable but this way it's poetry.

evanston_dad "The Commitments" is one of those triumph of the underdog movies, this one about a bunch of Irish kids who want to make it as a rock band.It's been a while since I've seen this, but I remember thinking that the movie wasn't really about much. I liked it -- it has tremendous energy, and a virtual non-stop parade of great songs, but it felt more like an extended MTV music video than it did a movie.But Alan Parker is just the guy to direct a feature length video -- look what he did with "Evita." The movie garnered an Academy Award nomination for best film editing, which tells you who the true star of the movie is.Grade: B+

Gordon-11 This film is about a bunch of deprived people in a slum area forming a band. They hope to make it big with their soul music.I find "The Commitments" tedious and boring. The characters engage in endless tirade, shouting profanities at each other constantly. The way they treat each other is simply sad. The clothes they wear are all dismally coloured. Furthermore, the film is set in a deprived area, meaning unattractive sets and locations. All these things make the film unattractive to me. It is made worse by the poor lighting. Many scenes are poorly lit. A scene featuring the tour bus going down the road is a prime example. The cameraman obviously focused on the sky, making the road, houses and the bus very dark."The Commitments" sounds like an uplifting film with heart and soul. But I was wrong. It is dismal, hostile and unlikable.