This would seem to lend The Commitments some degree of authenticity and it does to a certain extent, as these guys can crank out familiar favorites without missing a step, but the description of working musicians suggests that there is some grit here, which there's not. In that sense, the Commitments were a cousin to the Blues Brothers, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd's tribute to the very same music but where Jake and Elwood managed to hire Stax's house band (such are the perks of stardom), the group Parker assembled were working Irish musicians. As a book and film, The Commitments was all about love of music, so it didn't matter if the soundtrack offered workmanlike versions of oldies the band and audience knew by heart: as long as it was done with some, well, soul, the film would work, and the soundtrack would too. Alan Parker's adaptation of Roddy Doyle's crackerjack novel The Commitments kept its focus on the music - the classic American R&B and soul the titular workingman band cranked out in pubs across Ireland.
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