The Commitments

Alan Parker's sexy, hilarious, exuberantly energetic new film, The Commitments, has so much rhythmic juice that it's nearly impossible to stay in your seat. Read full review

Cross Fame and Spinal Tap, color it Irish, and you've got The Commitments, the summer's most irresistible movie. [30 Aug 1991, p.79]

The Commitments is a noisy, gritty, foul-mouthed movie with strong Irish sentiments and accents as pungent as stout. [13 Sep 1991, p.20]

Commitments, adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais from the Roddy Doyle book, exults in its own world. The characters, with their foibles and verbal joustings, are everything. There's something poetically sardonic in every sentence they utter. Read full review

It's modest - but within its own framework, tough to beat. [14 Aug 1991, p.4D]

There are so many terrific small moments to discover in The Commitments that there's no danger of ever growing bored. [14 Sep 1991, p.E1]

Thanks in great part to a couple of dozen wonderful soul songs from the 1960s, and a very engaging and talented group of young Dubliners, The Commitments is a thorough delight - warm, funny and deeply human. [13 Sep 1991, p.3F]

Partly a scintillating performance documentary, partly a comic romp through a rough-and-tumble culture, The Commitments has the charismatic energy of the music it salutes - this is blues that cheers you up, soul with a whole lot of heart. [16 Aug 1991]

This is probably Alan Parker's best film, in part because it's one of his most modest. Read full review

The film offers no message, no solutions, only a great time at the movies. Read full review

This is an infectious musical story of rise-and-fall. Read full review

A gritty, naturalistic comedy blessed with a wry, affectionate eye for the absurdities of the band's various rivalries and ambitions; and the songs are matchless. Read full review

Director Alan Parker's story of a band of young Dubliners playing American '60s soul is fresh, well-executed and original. Read full review

The movie isn't about the band, really; it's about having a chance when the cards are stacked against it. It's about climbing out. When they sing those great soul songs, it feels like a better world for everyone and that's how Parker manages to get us into his box with him. Read full review

The movie is filled with life and energy, and the music is honest. The Commitments is one of the few movies about a fictional band that’s able to convince us the band is real and actually plays together. Read full review

Mr. Parker immerses his audience in a world in which popular art amounts to a communal high, a means of achieving identity and a great escape from the abundant problems of everyday life. As in Fame, he does this with a mixture of annoying glibness and undeniable high-voltage style. [14 Aug 1991, p.C11]

It looks like director Parker, who can be quite ambitious (Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise), is coasting this time, merely reworking his big hit, Fame. Read full review

For all its emphasis on working-class integrity, The Commitments is really Fame wrapped in streetwise packaging. Read full review

Whenever The Commitments threatens to get bogged down in its own problems, Parker is savvy enough to pull it back with more of that invigorating music on the soundtrack. When that band starts to sing, the screen fills with genuine life, and that is too rare a commodity for anyone to second-guess for long. [14 Aug 1991, p.F1]

As The Commitments goes on, you begin to weary of the one-note characters, who don’t so much converse as exchange arch put-downs. Read full review

It’s the old Monkees trick: If you can’t find a band, manufacture one. British director Alan Parker (Fame, Mississippi Burning) lucks out. The dozen unknowns he’s chosen — ten with no previous acting credits — make a joyful noise and rousing company. Parker, however, hasn’t made much of a movie. Read full review

Little rings true in The Commitments. The music, which is never lip-synched, is very good -- especially when Strong, only 16 at the time, belts Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness. But the characters are shrill and two-dimensional, and the performers, most of whom had little or no prior acting experience, are made to look like pro-wrestling buffoons. [16 Aug 1991, p.F1]

Parker uses such broad strokes that he can't tease the necessary charm out of his actor. The band's backstage spats are too extreme to be convincing and as a joke they get old fast. [13 Sep 1991, p.24]