'The Commitments' - Movie Review

The 1991 movie based on the 1987 Roddie Doyle novel of the same name. Our protagonist is Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), young and unemployed in Dublin, with a dream of starting a famous band. He starts auditioning and recruiting, and brings together ten people to play American Soul. They start out sounding a bit crap, but they keep rehearsing until they sound fantastic on stage ... while simultaneously they're disintegrating off stage.

The actors were picked primarily for their ability to play or sing, and it shows in the performances: they sound fantastic. So much so that much of the cast ran a couple of tours performing the music in the movie, and both the soundtrack and a follow-up album charted. But the portrayal of a band forming and falling apart again is beautiful, hilarious, and a little tragic: it remains one of the best band movies there is. A great piece of work.