The Commitments (1991): The Greatest Fake Band Ever? | The VHS Club Ep. 143

Before Once. Before Sing Street. Before every movie about a scrappy group of musicians coming together to form a band…There was The Commitments.

And this band had absolutely NO business sounding this good. 😂

This week on The VHS Club, Katie and Nat are going back to 1991 to revisit The Commitments, Alan Parker’s musical comedy-drama about an ambitious young manager who decides Dublin needs something it apparently didn't know it needed:Soul music.

He assembles a group of working-class Dublin musicians, names them The Commitments, and attempts to turn them into the hardest-working band in Ireland.There’s just one small problem: they can barely stand each other.

We’re talking about:

• The absolutely incredible performances
• How a bunch of young musicians became The Commitments
• Dublin, soul music, and the movie’s very Irish sense of humor
• A soundtrack packed with classics like “Mustang Sally” and “Try a Little Tenderness”
• A band held together by approximately zero emotional stability
• The stories behind the movie and its unusual casting process
• Why The Commitments became such a beloved cult classic
• And, most importantly: Is this one of the greatest fictional movie bands ever?

Plus, we’ll have behind-the-scenes trivia, favorite moments, questionable decisions, tangents, and all the nostalgia you’d expect from The VHS Club.

Tater Tots: Did you grow up with The Commitments, or is this your first time joining the “World’s Hardest Working Band”?

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