Watch The Van For Free

To me, this movie is perfection.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The Van is directed by Stephen Frears and written by Roddy Doyle. It stars Colm Meaney, Donal O'Kelly, Ger Ryan and Caroline Rothwell. Music is by Eric Clapton and Richard Hartley and cinematography by Oliver Stapleton. It is the third film in Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy, it was preceded by The Comittments and The Snapper. Plot sees Meaney and O'Kelly as best pals who after struggling with unemployment decide to do up an old fast food van and make a living out of selling burgers and chips. Initially it's a fulsome venture as the country is taken over mu football fervour during the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy, but it's not long before cracks begin to appear in the two friends' relationship.Often raucous and very funny, with deft moments of human drama, The Van is an entertaining picture if one can get past the stereotypes. Meaney dominates proceedings, not just because of his acting gusto, but because he gets to shout all the best lines! The spectre of unemployment is given an assured telling by Frears, and the impact of Ireland's football team on the community is most telling, but there is barely enough material to cover the 100 minutes running time, meaning that entering the final stretch, as the story goes serious, it begins to run out of petrol. Still, the good will garnered during the best scenes in the van more than make it a safe recommendation for adults who like a bit of Oirish mirth. 7/10

OK, apparently, Colm Meaney (happy birthday, Colm!) is best known for a "Star Trek" role, but I always associate him with his roles in adaptations of Roddy Doyle novels. They are "The Commitments", "The Snapper" and "The Van". The last one casts as a down-on-his-luck Dubliner who with his friend finds a grimy abandoned van and opens it up. While I mostly liked the movie, it did have the problem of showing the Irish drinking and moping about life's travails; is that the only way to stereotype people from the Emerald Isle? But otherwise, I found it a pretty good look at working-class life in Ireland. Once again, Stephen Frears added another accomplishment to his resume, recently continued with "The Queen". I recommend it, and see whether or not you want to get a bite to eat from any random van after watching this.

The characters drink, bicker, whine, drink more, try to get their act together, bicker, whine, drink, whine...The writers could have used someone to ask them some tough questions. Why are these characters friends? What are you trying to say about these people? If the answer is "for some people, hard work will never pay off," then pray tell us, why not? Does it have something to do with being Irish? If so, what? If not, then what? The friendship between the protagonists is not adequately developed, and when the friendship hits rough times it is hard to care. They didn't seem to like each other very much to begin with. I began not to like them. I didn't see them as tormented, confused or angry, just disagreeable.Although I don't demand that all films about the Irish have a gentle Bill Forsyth touch, a little of his character development and motivation would have helped here. The concept is charming, why are the characters so harsh and helpless?

After the feel-good THE COMMITMENTS and the real-life THE SNAPPER, the third film in Roddy Doyle's Barrytown trilogy is a shade disappointing. THE VAN isn't a bad film by any means; it's just that it should and could have been better.The screenplay is by Roddy Doyle, which makes it strange that the Rabbitte family has been so radically restructured. Jimmy becomes Larry, Jimmy Jr and the (marvellously funny) twins have gone, Sharon - the unmarried teenage mother of THE SNAPPER - has become Diane. A large measure of the fun of the bustling Rabbitte family life goes with them. Ireland, it seems, is no longer a land of "large families in small houses." The same shrinkage seems to have happened to Jimmy's(no, Larry's)circle of friends.Presumably this has been done to avoid distracting from the core of the story - male friendship, female growth, living with unemployment. Oh, and football. Easily the best parts of the film, though, are those given over to the details of getting and running a dodgy chipper van. The end is handled oddly, though. What comes over in the book as a vindication of friendship over money appears in the film to be no more than a piece of drunken vandalism.But something has been lost - richness, detail - in this stripping down of the story. Budgetary constraints, perhaps?See THE COMMITMENTS for fun, see THE SNAPPER for its gutsy storytelling. Only see THE VAN if you really want to know what happened next.