'The Van': Dublin Over With Laughter

"The Van," with its emphasis on bluster, blarney and boozing, would get the Irish up if it were written by anyone but that son of the shamrock Roddy Doyle. The Dubliner's affection for all things Irish flows through this uproarious portrait of Dublin's blue-collar class like stout from the tap of the local pub.

Billed as the last chapter in Doyle's Barrytown trilogy, "The Van" may not be as substantive or edgy as "The Commitments" and "The Snapper," but it's definitely the most fun. Much of the credit goes to Colm Meaney, who returns to the series as Larry, the ruddy-faced, lovably befuddled and overbearing da of yet another boisterous brood.

Living proof that it isn't easy being green, Larry has been on the dole for so long he's become expert at wasting time. So when his best friend Bimbo (Donal O'Kelly) loses his job as a baker, Larry offers to show him the ropes. After a few days of watching the soaps and duffing the links, Bimbo decides to buy and fix up a burger-mobile with his severance check.

"Jaahy-suus!!! It looks like the insides of a leper," Larry howls upon first encountering the filthy, motorless wreck. But he becomes caught up in Bimbo's enthusiasm and after much elbow grease and more stout, the friends drag the van off to purvey their artery-clogging fare to what they hope will be hungry hordes.

To the surprise of kith and kin, "Bimbo's Burgers" proves a rousing success for the inexperienced restaurateurs. Alas, the stifling confines of the van and the men's differing temperaments put an enormous strain on their lifelong friendship. And Bimbo, at the insistence of his business manager and wife, downgrades the hotheaded Larry from partner to employee. Larry retaliates and their relationship seems certain to suffer as a consequence.

There's bitter with the sweet, but Stephen Frears, who also directed "The Snapper," never allows these moments to quite register. Perhaps he'd had enough of bleakness after finishing the gloomy loser "Mary Reilly." For whatever reason, the pace is brisk enough for a derby, and the mood of the piece as unsinkable as the protagonists themselves.

Meaney, best known for replacing Scotty in "Star Trek: The Next Generation," brings the same enthusiasm, if not the same competence, to frying cod as he does to stoking the Enterprise's engine. An inexpert cook, he actually manages to batter, deep-fry and serve a customer one of his grandchild's disposable diapers.

When the customer dares to complain, Larry demands to know if it's been used. The customer warily peeks under the batter and shakes his head no. "Then what's the problem?" booms Larry, and he pelts the poor bloke with fillets of raw cod as Bimbo speeds away before the man can write down their registration number.

Like most buddy comedies made in Hollywood, "The Van" gives short shrift to wives and lovers, who only get in the way when males are bonding. Wives are exempt from the chronic unemployment that affects the menfolk, and other manifestations of the kitchen-sink realism that informs the bleaker British imports such as "Trainspotting."

I'll take plucky charms over needle tracks any day.

The Van is rated R for profanity.