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- <text id=91TT1927>
- <title>
- Aug. 26, 1991: View Points:Cinema
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Aug. 26, 1991 Science Under Siege
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- VIEW POINTS, Page 63
- CINEMA
- Dublin Soul
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By Richard Corliss
- </p>
- <p> Hey, kids, let's put the show on right here! Better yet,
- let Alan Parker stage it for you. In Bugsy Malone (1976) and
- Fame (1980), this English director assembled teen casts for
- slick, violent musical parables. Now, in THE COMMITMENTS, he
- turns Roddy Doyle's novel about a Dublin band into a rousing
- entertainment. It has the larkish wit and edgy camaraderie of
- the Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night, to which it might
- serve as a prequel: a kid on the dole (Robert Arkins) organizes
- a fledgling group devoted to covering '60s rhythm-and-blues
- songs. How fervently these members of the Irish underclass wish
- to be black! And how it must have tempted Parker, who in his
- recent films (Mississippi Burning, Come See the Paradise) has
- told America what to think about racial issues, to insert a
- lecture during the break. Here, though, the big drama is whether
- soul survivor Wilson Pickett will show up at the band's big gig.
- The picture could be half an hour shorter or twice as long--and that would be just fine, because The Commitments runs on
- rough charm and roadhouse melody. The film offers no message,
- no solutions, only a great time at the movies.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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