The Commitments: Special Edition/Gold Edition (1991) |
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The Commitments: Special Edition/Gold Edition (1991) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Musical |
Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Making Of-2 Biographies-Crew-Alan Parker (Director) Music Video-"Treat Her Right" Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1991 | ||
| Running Time | 112:40 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Alan Parker |
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Studio
Distributor |
 MGM |
Starring |
Robert Arkins Michael Aherne Angeline Ball Maria Doyle Kennedy Dave Finnegan Bronagh Gallagher Félim Gormley Glen Hansard Dick Massey Johnny Murphy Kenneth McCluskey Andrew Strong Colm Meaney |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $19.95 | Music |
James Campbell Connelly |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
German German for the Hearing Impaired Spanish English Swedish Norwegian Danish |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The Commitments is a truly feel good film. Based on a novel by the masterful Irish author Roddy Doyle, it presents the tale of a bunch of working class Dubliners, who form a band in the 1990s and come mere inches from making the big-time. It is a heart-warming story, tinged with sadness but filled with wit and sharply observed humour. Alan Parker (Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express and Fame) delivers - for my money - his best work in this sweet little number.
Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) is an aspiring music manager, full of enthusiasm, guile and endless optimism. It's just a shame he hasn't got a band to manage! Whilst attending a Dublin wedding, he meets up with two old friends who are playing in the ill-fated band "And And! And". Jimmy is impressed by a drunken solo from one of the guests, who briefly takes to the stage when the band take a pit-stop. This heartfelt rendition of The Proclaimers' Letter From America is delivered by the sixteen year old bus conductor Deco Cuffe (Andrew Strong). With the three of them as the seeds of a band, it only remains for Jimmy to decide what they are going to play, and to recruit the remaining musicians.
The wascally Rabbitte soon secures a full complement of musicians including Joey "The Lips" on trumpet, red-headed Outspan (a famous brand of oranges in Europe) on guitar and the near-psychotic Mickah Wallace on drums. Of course no soul band would be complete without some sexy backing vocalists and "The Commitmentettes" arrive in the form of the shapely Imelda Quirke, the sultry Natalie and the chippy van driving Bernie. The band progress from tumultuous rehearsals to playing the local community centre and before too long fame is knocking at the door as the local journalists are alerted to their growing popularity. Unfortunately tantrums, intra-group sex and petty jealousies soon come to the fore. Can the band survive their own success?
The backdrop to the film is the long-term unemployment and poverty of Ireland. Subsequent investment has made modern Dublin a vibrant and quite wealthy European city, but the film manages to capture those bleaker days very well indeed - as well as the awful clothes and haircuts of the time! The Commitments also manages to create an ensemble of totally believable characters, all of them excellently portrayed by a largely unknown cast. It is amazing that more of them haven't gone on to much bigger things in the world of music or film - with the obvious exception of The Corrs, three of whom perform in minor roles in this movie. Andrew Strong in particular has an astoundingly powerful voice - the music is all recorded live on set - and Arkins is wonderfully cast as Rabbitte. The rich vein of humour which runs through the film makes it more endearing on repeat viewings - I still laugh every time I hear the confessional scene where the Priest corrects the aspiring pianist on his knowledge of soul. There is a real bitter-sweet feel to the film and the raw language (replete with endless one-liners), austere Dublin slums and striking poverty of the band members will have you desperate to see the band succeed. After all "the Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland and Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin...so say it once and say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud!"
This will be a must purchase film for fans, and I can highly recommend at least a rental for those of you who have yet to see it.
The overall video transfer of this film is very good and is certainly much better than my Region 1 Pan & Scan copy of the movie.
The movie is at long last presented in an anamorphic aspect ratio of 1.85:1 which is the original theatrical aspect ratio.
The image is satisfyingly sharp throughout and there is nothing distracting in the way of grain, although it does make a small appearance from time to time along with a small amount of pixelization - particularly in shots which show the sky.
Black levels are quite deep with no significant low-level noise. Shadow detail is satisfactory overall but there is sometimes a limited amount of visual detail present in the darkest scenes. Colours are cleanly rendered, with no bleeding or smearing noticed. The palette can be limited at times, although is probably reflective of the dour wintry Dublin environment. There are, however, some occasional brighter primaries in the night clubs and bars, so overall the film comes across as rather natural looking. Skin tones, too, are satisfyingly natural.
Aliasing was absent on my set-up and there was only a small amount of edge enhancement noticeable from time to time. This is evidenced as a halo around some characters and objects but is never bad enough to be annoying. I noted no significant issues with MPEG compression artefacts.
The transfer is very clean and it seems either a very clean print has been sourced, or there has been some restoration work carried out. Certainly it does not look fifteen years old.
The English subtitles are legible and well timed but they do drop some of the less essential phrases. They also provide some - but not all - song lyrics.
The disc is in a single sided and dual layered (RSDL) format, with the brief layer change occurring at 72:34.
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The audio transfer is very good, although a tad reedy at times.
The sole English audio track for the main feature is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 448 kbps. It delivers a fairly enveloping soundstage when the music kicks in - which is unsurprisingly rather frequent. There are no significant defects in the way of clicks, hiss or dropouts. Audio sync is fine for the duration and the dialogue is always perfectly clear, albeit given the constraints of some very thick Irish accents.
The musical score is obviously a highlight of the film. It contains a large number of soul tunes such as Mustang Sally, Chain Of Fools and the fabulous Dark End of the Street. This is a musical film and, appropriately, the soundtrack is accomplished and memorable. Most impressive is the way the band come across convincingly as a real group. The music was recorded live on the set and it is accompanied by some absolutely sterling vocals from both Andrew Strong and the female vocalists.
The front speakers do a very good job of spreading the sound across the front of the room, with some nice stereo separation across the main speakers. The dialogue is firmly anchored in the centre speaker where it belongs. The surround speakers are at their busiest when the music kicks in and do also provide some surround ambience during crowd scenes. There is generally little in the way of front to rear panning or localised spot effects.
The subwoofer gets a reasonable workout, mainly from the rousing musical numbers and adds a nice bass beat to the cracking soundtrack. There is little in the way of deep LFE presence but this is probably to be expected - this is no action flick.
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There are a couple of half decent extras present, which whilst not exactly a treasure trove will surely please fans of the movie.
The menus are nicely well put together photo montages, with some animation and plenty of musical accompaniment. The main menu offers the choices of playing the feature, selecting one of a mere sixteen chapter stops, audio language and subtitle selection or watching the following special features:
This short featurette runs for only 8:03 and is fairly typical EPK stuff. It is presented full screen with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps.
This short featurette is presented full screen and runs for 4:11 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps. It tracks Parker's film career through video clips and although brief, successfully shows the diversity of his work.
This is a more substantial piece running for 24:55 and is once again presented full screen with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps. Created at the time of filming it features interviews with the stars and is presented full screen with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps. It is both informative and entertaining.
Presented non-anamorphically enhanced at 1.37:1 this video features Jimmy singing with the band as they perform Treat Her Right. It runs for 3:26 and has a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps.
Running for 2:17 and presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.85:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps.
Running for 1:42 and presented full screen with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 kbps.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
There have been a few Region 1 releases of this film:
My Region 1 20th century Fox version is a 4:3 Pan & Scan affair with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at only 192 kbps (including the extra features). It contains an additional extra in the form of a "CD Sampler", which consists of four very brief sound bites from the soundtrack CD and is generally worthless. It misses out on the following extras found on the Region 4 version:
There is, however, a more recent two disc Collectors Edition available in Region 1, which features an anamorphically enhanced 1.85:1 transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, and the average bit rate of the disc has been boosted to 8.8 Mbps (compared to 6.4 on the Region 4 version). Unfortunately for Region 4 fans, it also includes the following special features in addition to those found on our release:
The two disc Region 1 Collectors Edition is much better overall from the extras perspective and would be the obvious purchase option for dedicated fans of the film.
The Commitments is a classic film. The tale of a struggling Irish soul group, desperate to escape the poverty of their surroundings will make you laugh, have your toes tapping and possibly even sing along. For those who enjoy soul music, black humour, Irish accents and swearing there is probably no better movie to own. For those who have never seen this movie - it is well, well worth a rental. A warm, funny and touching film - quite possibly Alan Parker's best.
The 1.85:1 video transfer is very good.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio transfer is very good.
There are a few decent extras present, but once again these are overshadowed by a much better endowed Region 1 release.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Momitsu V880 upconverting DVI player, using DVI output |
| Display | Sanyo PLV-Z2 WXGA projector. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-SR600 with DD-EX and DTS-ES |
| Speakers | JensenSPX-9 fronts, Jensen SPX-13 Centre, Jensen SPX-5 surrounds, Jensen SPX-17 subwoofer |