The Commitments
Director: Alan Parker
Year Released: 1991
Rating: 1.5
The world's hardest working cover band come together, become comfortable musically with one another and then fight bitterly and break up; they don't have any original songs, so (yet another) part of the film's "crowd pleasing" reputation comes from their "bluesy" renditions of familiar classics. Every scene is designed with a some kind of punch line arriving right at the end, but the jokes are so forced and the screenplay so carefully designed to keep rolling out the gags that the lightheartedness becomes irritating after a while; the in-fighting amongst band members, too, often comes at the least likely times to help maintain "drama." Despite these flaws, it remains painless watching, and the band is nice to listen to. If only Godot, I mean, Wilson Pickett showed up in time....
