Main Cast: Colm Meaney, Donal O'Kelly, Ger Ryan, Caroline Rothwell, Neili Conroy
Release Year: 1996
Country: IE/UK
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
This is the third film adapted from a fictional trilogy by Irish writer Roddy Doyle about families living in a working-class Dublin neighborhood. The first was director Alan Parker's smashing music mockumentary The Commitments and the second was the hilarious comedy The Snapper, directed by Stephen Frears. Frears also directs this film, which is about two unemployed buddies who convert a dilapidated van into Bimbo's Burgers, a mobile fast-food joint selling fish and chips and hamburgers. Bimbo (Donal O'Kelly) is the brains behind the operation, while his slacker friend Larry (Colm Meany) is his bumbling helper. They first set up shop outside a pub to capture patrons streaming out after watching a telecast of Ireland playing in the World Cup. When Ireland is eliminated, the bumbling entrepreneurs move to a forlorn beach. They get the help of Larry's daughter Diane (Neili Conroy) and son Kevin (Rauidhuri Conroy), who soon becomes so disgusted with the fare that he becomes a vegetarian. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
Set in 1990 before the economic resurgence of the Emerald Isle, Stephen Frears' adaptation of Roddy Doyle's novel is a richly comic take on the chaotic world of a pair of marginalized friends in a working-class Dublin neighborhood. Bimbo (Donal O'Kelley) has just been fired and Larry (Colm Meaney) is on the dole, so they decide to become entrepreneurs, refitting a decrepit van as "Bimbo's Burgers." Although compared to the previous films made from his books --The Commitments (1991) and The Snapper (1993) -- this is Doyle lite, the odd-couple pairing of the conscientious, hardworking O'Kelley and veteran profligate and layabout Meaney is inspired. Confined for days on end within the tiny ambit of their workplace, it's only a matter of time before their differences begin to drive the friends apart. Against a gently satirized backdrop of the football-mania triggered by the presence of the Irish team in the 1990 World Cup, the film limns a milieu where despair and want are kept at bay by resiliency, humor, stout, and a tightly knit community. In a film that is uniformly well-acted, the two leads are brilliant. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (October 2008)
The movie is set in "Barrytown", a fictitious working-class quarter of Dublin. Brendan "Bimbo" Reeves gets laid off from his job. With his redundancy check, he buys a van and sells fish and chips with his buddy Larry. Due to Ireland's surprising success at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, their business starts off well, but soon the relationship between the two friends is strained, because Bimbo behaves more and more like a typical boss.
