The music is tremendous in this hilarious, yet sombre, look at the tragedy that is Wasted Talent

Rating: 7/10 (20 March 2020)

"The Commitments" burst on to the scene in 1991 and immediately garnered much critical acclaim. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Editing, but it was the music that would make it the film that it is. The soundtrack went on to sell millions and achieved triple-platinum status. Set in recession-stricken Dublin in the late 1980s, Jimmy Rabbitte is a young unemployed man who wheels-and-deals and dreams of music stardom. He has a strong passion for soul music and when he puts an ad in the paper for musicians to audition for the band he wants to put together and manage, he attracts a wide variety of nutjobs and pure talent. He assembles a line-up, and they hit the stages around working-class Dublin. They become a hit in no time, and with whispers of deals and contracts only down the line, and with Wilson Pickett himself rumoured to be lined up to play with the band while he is in Dublin, all that is going to hold this motley crew back is their hatred of each other.
"The Commitments" is a funny and unique film in that the rags-to-riches tale is turned upside down and we are left with a rather sad ending that evokes, as much of the rest of the film does, real life. There is nothing glamorous here, and director Alan Parker hammers it home by filling the movie with dreary, rain-drenched shots of social poverty and ruin. Choosing to film with subdued lighting also helped, as the film always appears to be in darkness. The characters are rough and very talented and they range from the mysterious and sleazy Joey "The Lips" Fagan - who may or may not be what he says he is - to the films finest attribute, the voice of Andrew Strong, who has to be the oldest looking teenager to ever appear on film. He was only about seventeen in this, but he looks and sounds thirty, at least. But what a voice. The rest of the cast are very good, and it is hard to believe that none of them went on to do much else after this - film-wise anyway. Robert Arkins who plays Jimmy vanished into obscurity in the years that followed. Andrew Strong never became as big as he should have. Glen Hansard, however, did go on to become a household name for his band and for the 2007 film "Once". Far from a masterpiece - its humour is dependent on Roddy Doyle's writing where we have a bunch of young Irish men and women roaring abuse at one another in between some fantastic musical performances - it nevertheless carries a strong personality and is a credit to the music that it celebrates, and to Irish life and the era it comes from.