‘The Commitments’ (R)

Fantasy movies usually are set in faraway pockets of time or a million light-years from here. It's even more gratifying when they show up in the real world.

In Alan Parker's delightful "The Commitments," the reality is working-class Dublin. The fantasy is soul music. A group of amateur musicians aims for the big time, the songs of Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding hovering over them like the Holy Grail. If the Commitments don't become the greatest soul band of all time, it's the world's fault.

Then again, it could be because they fight so much.

Parker, who failed to get to the heart of the matter in "Mississippi Burning" and "Come See the Paradise," finally goes for the gut. Assembling a talented group of musical non-actors, he creates an inspired, effervescent drama. "Commitments" combines the giddiness of old Hollywood musicals with the frenetic spirit of "A Hard Day's Night." It's also suffused with salty Irish slang, most of which can't be printed -- or understood, for that matter.

The musical numbers, actually performed by the on-screen band, are sensational. Lead singer Andrew Strong can really belt out a song. This is a once-in-a-lifetime movie for these performers. This is their moment and they play it to the hilt.

Anyway, one foine day, youthful would-be manager Jimmy (Robert Arkins) places an ad for a band. "HAVE YOU got soul?" it begins. Person by person, he builds up a group of musical disciples he hopes will take the world by storm. Dean (Felim Gormley) plays sax. Singer Deco (Strong) can do Wilson Pickett effortlessly. Three feisty young ladies (Maria Doyle, Angeline Ball, Bronagh Gallagher) light up the backup section. Drummer Billy (Dick Massey) is ferocious. Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy) used to play trumpet for all the greats -- or so he says.

The only thing missing is Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland and the barn.

They find rehearsal space above a pool room. They practice all the great standards, from "Mustang Sally" to "The Midnight Hour." They're rusty at first. But after a healthy (and amusing) round of bickering, acrimony, profanity and more rehearsals, they get better. They perform for the first time in a community center -- in front of all those folks who didn't believe in them. They're sensational. They're on their way.

Or are they? The infighting amounts to civil war at times. The drummer leaves. His replacement, an ex-bouncer, is a violent sort. Wizened, buck-toothed trumpeter Murphy seems to be seducing all the women in the band. Also, the band seems forever doomed to ride to gigs in a Mr. Chippy vending truck.

"Commitments," adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais from the Roddy Doyle book, exults in its own world. The characters, with their foibles and verbal joustings, are everything. There's something poetically sardonic in every sentence they utter.

"Me ooncle gev it to me when his loong collapsed," Gormley says about his trusty saxophone. He tells the story as if lungs give out every other day in Dublin. When pianist Steven (Michael Aherne) lugs a piano upstairs to the first rehearsal, he confesses he stole it from under his grandmother's nose.

"She doesn't know I took it," he says. "But she doesn't use the front room very often."

Manager Arkins tries to rally the band with this speech: "Irish are the blacks of Europe and Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland and Northerners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it now: 'I'm black and I'm proud.' "

The group's open-mouthed reaction is priceless.

Perhaps the funniest, and most telling, moment (which the previews give away anyway) occurs when a woeful band member slips into a confession booth. It's been a long time since his last confession, he says. This sudden plunge into music has made him forget his responsibilities. He curses all the time. He neglects his work. He's lustful towards the girls in the band. Now, he adds, he finds himself constantly "humming 'When a Man Loves a Woman' by Marvin Gaye."

"Percy Sledge," corrects the unseen priest. In a musical world like Dublin, a mistake like that is the greatest sin of all.