Great Music; Not-So-Great Characters

Rating: 5/10 (13 December 2006)

The music makes this a very entertaining film but there are severe drawbacks: at least to people who aren't familiar with the accents or maybe don't approve a the Lord's name in vain or the f-word said every two seconds as the Irish do in this film.
The singers in this film are good, particularly the lead singer who, supposedly, was only 16 years of age when this film was made (but he looks 30). He has a great "soul" voice. The story is interesting and there is some good humor in her, too.
The bad news is that it portrays the Irish as extremely profane people who do nothing but scream at each other and tell each other to f-off. That wears thin after awhile. Everyone says this: young and old. One hopes this isn't representative of the entire country.
The movie also has as one of the characters an older trumpet player who is portrayed as a "religious" man who wears crosses and says the Lord told him to do this and do that. Hen then proceeds to have sex with every female in the group. Talk about anti-religious cheap shot. Well, that's typical of filmmakers.
In a nutshell: great music, fairly interesting story, but profane, blasphemous and full of scummy people.