terencef100 This is a very poorly paced, acted, and directed movie that, with a little imagination, could have delivered a decent story. The plot, such that it is, centres around two brothers from County Clare that parted in anger twenty years before the movie's setting at an Irish music festival. They meet as competitors, having engaged in some ham-fisted attempts to derail each other's arrival in time for registration, and quickly revisit the reasons for their acrimony. The plot develops so predictably from then on that the side stories are more interesting - but only marginally.The director curiously adheres to some stereotypes of Irish people and culture (and Liverpudlians' too), with plenty of drinking, cursing, vomiting, and general idiocy; however, he gets some very obvious cultural markers wrong - single women in pubs (the movie is set in the 1960s, when Ireland was far from its current liberal self), a man ordering wine in a pub (utterly unheard of back then!), and some non-Irish outsiders going totally unnoticed. Worse than this, however, is his unwillingness to go anywhere unconventional or unpredictable: characters are as flimsy as the script, the pace dull and boring, and even the music is mediocre at best. It tells a dull story competently; but nothing more. Colm Meaney meanders through the movie in third gear, while Andrea Corr makes a tolerable debut. Patrick Bergin and Frank Kelly have cameos that they won't add to their resumes. All in all, a poor movie that wastes what little it had going for it. Do yourself a favor and rent "The Field" instead.

dublin_rox I went to see this film at the Montreal Irish Film Festival a couple of years ago, and it was simply lovely. I saw it with my mother who is born & raised Irish, and a friend who is a Jewish Montrealer; we all enjoyed it the same. It's the kind of film that crosses all cultural boundaries and tells a great story with fantastic music. If you know the Irish, then all the better. It really gets the Irish character perfectly with all the different people in it. There aren't any stereotypes; all different types of characters co-exist.I wish there were a soundtrack for this, but I've never been able to find one! You'll probably laugh, cry and want to dance when you see this; it's an experience.

maeveo Yes, this movie is adorable...but I feel that a lot of that was just because it took place in Ireland. I'm a full blooded Irish and saw through it...It's easy to get swept away in soft accents, pints, and fiddle music.It seemed like the plot just sprung out of nowhere. Like, we were watching the movie for half an hour and then out of nowhere Anne pops up and is like "WHOS MY DADDY". There wasn't much character development so it was hard to really feel for any of the characters unless you were lulled into the Irish environment. Even if you're meant to read between the lines...there just should have been more. We barely knew anything about the characters and we were supposed to care about their pasts? Plus, for all of the praise Anne was getting for being such a great fiddler, the movie didn't highlight her playing at all. She didn't stand out in sound or in appearance from any of the other band members, other than just being pretty.But, I guess its sort of cute.

cbeetle This movie was trite and utterly predictable. The two or three "big secrets" of the film were transparent far in advance. I was bored through most of it, and occasionally uncomfortable due to some rather obvious overacting. Even the music, for which I had had high hopes, could not wake this picture up, though admittedly part of this may have been due to the audio in the theater I attended.I wasn't offended at all by the coarseness of some of the dialog and action in the film. I was, however, taken aback that its authors expected me to be entertained by it. There was also more vomiting during this movie than I usually care to see. Most of it on-screen.