Cast: Colm Meaney, Phil Barantini, Andrea Corr, Marc O'Shea, Charlotte Bradley, Patrick Bergin
Director: John Irvin
Running time: 91 minutes
Age restriction: 10LS
Rating: 6 out of 10
Think small-town, musical UK movies like The Commitments and Brassed Off and you'll have some idea of what to expect with The Boys from County Clare.
Directed by John Irvin, who also helmed such character-driven Brit movies as A Month By The Lake and Widows' Peak, The Boys is not quite in the same league as those, but has its own rough charm.
The film revolves around Ireland's annual ceilidh band competition, a traditional music competition entered by Irish bands from throughout the UK (its original title, in fact, was The Great Ceilidh War).
And a war it is - each band takes the competition so deadly seriously that a whole host of ambush techniques are used (tyres vanishing off vehicles, violins being swopped, etc) to disadvantage rivals.
The focus of the movie, as the title suggests, is a band from County Clare, past winners who are determined to take home the trophy again. Their main rival is a band from Liverpool, with all the youngsters aspiring to be Beatles lookalikes.
The only problem is that the leaders of the rival bands are estranged brothers with a long-standing rivalry and a point to prove.
The reason for their rivalry is one of the members of the County Clare band, Maisie (Charlotte Bradley), who the now-successful Liverpool businessman brother, Jimmy (Colm Meaney) evidently impregnated and then abandoned when they were both younger.
Added to the mix is a budding young romance between members of the rival bands - talented new star Barry (Marc O'Shea) from Jimmy's Liverpool band and Maisie's teenage daughter Anne (Andrea Corr, better known as one of The Corrs, who does pretty well in her acting debut) from the County Clare band.
Emotions obviously run high because of past grudges, culminating in what can only be described as an eventful finale.
There's a delightful twist at the end with a local angle - definitely one of the highlights of the movie.
For the rest, it's sweet but predictable, quirky but emotionally soppy. It's not one of the best of its genre, but enjoyable enough while it lasts.