THE COMMITMENTS

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: an abundance of foul language

Rated:

While perusing a music video store online, I ran across a comment from a fan of the soundtrack of the film that, "The Commitments are my favorite group ... and they don't even exist!" Watching the film, it's hard to believe that they didn't, simply because this is a highly realistic "could-be" kind of a story about a group of ambitious young people who wanted to break into the music business.

All Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) has ever wanted is to be the manager of a band. But not just any band. A band with "soul." He knows how popular soul is an America among the black community and believes the same could be done in Dublin, since the "Irish are the blacks of society, and Dublin is the heart of the black Irish!" Together with his friends Foster (Glen Hansard) and Mooney (Dick Massey), he places an ad in the paper for musicians and singers and slowly gathers a rag-tag gaggle of aspiring stars. Now all he needs is a female backup group, and he finds that in his friend Bernie (Bronagh Gallagher), along with her blonde bombshell pal Imelda (Angeline Ball), and the sharp-tongue Natalie (Maria Doyle-Kennedy). With the girls in the mix, along with their lead vocalist Deco (Andrew Strong), and Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy) on the trumpet, Jimmy believes they can make it big.

Borrowing the room above the local pool hall to practice in, he strives to put together a group that will impress the locals and hopefully gather the attention of the press. But not all is heavenly between the band members. None of the girls particularly like Deco, who is both obnoxious and full of himself, and Joey always seems to be dating one of them. Their saxophone player is getting a little too big for his britches, and the drummer has had just about enough. The result is an amusing tale with absolutely fantastic music, and a quirky kind of Irish charm. I rented this because I was curious about a film that launched a number of musical careers. Maria Doyle-Kennedy has gone on to record several albums, as has Andrew Strong. The Irish pop group The Corrs even appears as background characters.

I have never been a tremendous fan of "soul," but what I heard I loved... and was surprised how many of the songs I already knew by heart. Strong has a tremendous voice (he was only sixteen when the film was made!) and his "Mustang Sally" is rip-roaring fun. It would be a great band movie if it weren't for one thing: the language. There are 145 uses of the f-word in a 113 minute film, which means that yes, they come fast and thick and are used by just about everyone (minus the priest, and one of the band members, who is a devout Catholic). Apparently, the Dublin Irish don't really consider it a vulgarity as much as "punctuation," and have no scruples in using it. They also abuse Jesus' name far too often for their own good. It's really a drag because it interrupts the flow of the film and makes it hard to recommend on the fly. Other than that, the content is minimal. A couple of times, the band members are shown talking in urinals. Jimmy emphasizes that soul is about "life and sex." There are a couple of cracks about masturbation.

Joey insists that God sent him to the band because the Irish people need "soul," so they will stop blowing one another up. As reverent as he may be about God, he has no scruples about bedding three different women. There's no actual sexual content, but he does crawl onto bed and spout some romantic garbage before Bernie pulls him down out of the camera frame. Deco is covered in blood after being punched and thrown into a heap of trash cans. Their new drummer is also a street thug, who drops his drumsticks and bounds into the crowd to beat up someone who took a swing at Jimmy. An electrocution sends a band member to the hospital. I thought Natalie and Jimmy had a nice chemistry, but it never really went anywhere. Plus, it cracked me up to see the same picture of the Pope gracing everyone's houses. In Jimmy's, immediately above it is a picture of Elvis, his dad's hero.

In conclusion it was quite an entertaining watch spoiled by an excess of foul language. But the soundtrack is definitely worth checking out, since it has some fantastic modern takes on older soul songs. Who knows? They might even convert me to listening to Aretha Franklin.