The Commitments

"They had nothing to lose, they risked it all."

1991 1h 58m EN

👍

7.3

SOLID

★7.3TMDB · 633

ComedyDramaMusic

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Jimmy Rabbitte, just a thick-ya out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan.

“They had nothing to lose, they risked it all.”

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Cast

Robert Arkins
Jimmy Rabbitte
Michael Aherne
Steven Clifford
Angeline Ball
Imelda Quirke
Maria Doyle Kennedy
Natalie Murphy
Dave Finnegan
Mickah Wallace
Bronagh Gallagher
Bernie McGloughlin
Félim Gormley
Dean Fay
Glen Hansard
Outspan Foster

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Alan Parker
Writers: Ian La Frenais, Dick Clement, Roddy Doyle
Languages: English, Irish
Countries: United States of America, United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

35 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Irish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: United States of America, United Kingdom.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Part of the "The Barrytown Trilogy" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Alan Parker, shot by Gale Tattersall. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Wilson Pickett. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Gerry Hambling shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Robert Arkins and Michael Aherne and Angeline Ball carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Alan Parker directs. Gale Tattersall behind the camera. Wilson Pickett scores. Gerry Hambling cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America, United Kingdom. Dialogue in English, Irish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

135 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: English, Irish.
3International production across 2 countries: United States of America, United Kingdom.
4Part of the "The Barrytown Trilogy" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5Directed by Alan Parker, shot by Gale Tattersall. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Wilson Pickett. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Gerry Hambling shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Robert Arkins and Michael Aherne and Angeline Ball carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "They had nothing to lose, they risked it all.".
10IMDB entry: tt0101605 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 9 themes, including "rock 'n' roll", "dublin, ireland", "ireland", "soul music".

The technical file

Cinematography: Gale Tattersall
Original score: Wilson Pickett
Editing: Gerry Hambling
Production design: Brian Morris
Costume design: Penny Rose
Makeup / hair: Peter Frampton
Runtime: 118 min · 1h 58m
Status: Released
Budget: $12,000,000
Box office: $14,919,570
Return: 124% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Commitments (1991)

Part of

The Barrytown Trilogy

The Barrytown Trilogy is an Irish comedy-drama media franchise centered on the Rabbittes, a working-class family from Barrytown, Dublin. It began in 1988 when Beacon Pictures and 20th Century Fox bought the rights to the 1987 novel The Commitments by Roddy Doyle shortly after it was published. The book was successful, as was Alan Parker's 1991 film adaptation. The film received cult status and is regarded as one of the best Irish films ever made. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked the film at number 38 on its list of the "100 best British films of the century", based on votes from 1,000 leading figures of the film industry. A sequel novel, The Snapper, was published in 1990, followed by a film adaptation in 1993. A third novel, The Van, was published and shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, followed by a film adaptation in 1996.

Also by

Alan Parker

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2024-03-14
★ 7/10
"Jimmy" (Robert Arkins) is a bit of a restless, creative, spirit and a man who is bored with the Dublin music scene. To rectify matters, he and his pal "Joey" (Johnny Murphy) - aka 'The Lips" decide to hold auditions to create a band. A band with an unique sound to challenge the prevailing mediocrity. After some frankly hilarious auditions that pitch the tone deaf straight into the arms of the fashion police, the pair manage to assemble ten folks as different as gin and Guinness. It's no easy task moulding these disparate and lively individuals into one coherent unit, but oddly enough - despite their differences - it's the music from the likes of Mack Rice ("Mustang Sally"), Al Green & Teenie Hodges and a range of established American soul songsters who manage to provide them all with a common language and purpose as they gradually start to gain some traction amongst a sceptical community and an even more cynical music business. It's fair to say that neither "Lips" nor "Jimmy" are high on the list at the diplomatic corps, so keeping these people from - quite literally at times - tearing each other apart is no mean feat. Being a Scot of a certain age from Glasgow, it's easy for me to appreciate the old adage that for many, the escape from post-industrial poverty was music - and both Danny Boyle and Roddy Doyle work well to create and engagingly plausible story of folks whose ambition is not to win a Grammy, but to have enough money to buy their kids milk in the morning. Those they assemble for the band are a myriad of characterful and colourful folks - some likeable, some certainly not - but put them on stage and the toes start tapping and all is forgiven. For a while, at least! There's a sense of real talent here, warts and all - and for just shy of two hours it's a compelling watch that reminded me that most bands started out with a talent scouting mechanism that didn't require the likes of Simon Cowell.

Production companies