Lisa Falour
Two Irish men with wives and children find themselves on the dole. One of them buys a large van and turns it into a "chippy." Naturally, he asks his best friend to work there with him. These two approaching-middle-age men have to work incredibly hard, but do have some success at the venture. It doesn't take long, however, for the friendship to get in the way. The one who fronted the money for the van is the boss, and the other one who didn't put up any money to get the small business going is the employee, who eventually becomes bitter at drawing a weekly paycheck from his best friend, who joins a union and begins antagonizing his best friend about labor laws, and whose insecurity in life shows clearly -- after all, the job isn't glamorous by any means, and of course, the reality of it is far removed from his dreams, we should imagine. The tension grows between the two. Set in Ireland during a World Cup Finals competition in soccer, this film gives us an intimate, grungy peek at the everyday realities of the poor in Ireland. It's "grand" to venture forth and set up one's own business and get off the dole, but of course, things are unlikely to run smoothly.
ian-anthony
Anyone who lived through the drama of the Italia 90 World Cup in Ireland should watch this movie. It brings back the drama and memories..but that is not all.The film really shows how friendship comes with a price.Simple folk, simple situation and the humour of the Irish really create a great story.My favourite moment in the film is when a little chubby kid strolls up to the van and asks for a choc ice. I won't spoil it but what happens then had me in stitches.GENIUS!
valadas
This is the story of two men belonging to the the Irish working class who after being sacked decide to start a business with a van for making and selling hamburgers and the like stuff. After a while their mutual relationship turns into a boss-employee one and things began to become worse until because friendship is thicker than money they began again to get well along with each other. The story is told in a half serious half funny way. It's very simple but not the less deep because of that. It's full of amusing episodes and details of everyday life but its very true, authentic and realistic.
pwk-2
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.
AD
