Die Commitments (1991)

Die Commitments: Directed by Alan Parker. With Robert Arkins, Michael Aherne, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle Kennedy. Jimmy Rabbitte, an unemployed Dublin boy, decides to put together a soul band made up entirely of the Irish working class.

“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 itu0026#39;s a parade of wrong music. His Elvis loving dad (Colm Meaney) doesnu0026#39;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 u0026quot;The Lipsu0026quot; Fagan (Johnny Murphy) is the womanizing experienced trumpet player who comes up with their name u0026quot;The Commitmentsu0026quot;. He hires the volatile Mickah Wallace (Dave Finnegan) as their security.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is fun. Itu0026#39;s great music. The cast is mostly musicians trying their hands at acting. Some of them would become quite interesting. Itu0026#39;s based on the first of novelist Roddy Doyleu0026#39;s lower class Barrytown trilogy. Itu0026#39;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 itu0026#39;s poetry.”