Sean Hughes Movies

Based on the best-selling novel by Irish comedian Spike Milligan, Puckoon is a political satire about a town cut in half by the partitioning of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1924. The action takes place in a town known as Puckoon where an ordinary fellow named Dan Madigan wakes up one day to find barbed-wire fences running right through his neighbors' houses. All at once, Madigan's friends begin altering their personalities to suit the side of the fence they've found themselves on. So it's up to Madigan, the last sane man in town, to restore order. Originally written in 1963, Puckoon is considered the forerunner of anti-humor comedy which became the staple of shows like Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. ~ Connor McMadden, Rovi

Juliette (Virginie Aster) is an immigration officer working the Eurostar train that runs by tunnel between London and Paris. When Juliette discovers her boyfriend (who happens to be married) (played by Jean Yves Berteloot) has not only been reading the diary file on her laptop computer but got so mad he threw it out the window, she gives him his walking papers. On the rebound, Juliette becomes involved with Frank (Kulvinder Ghir), who works with several radical political groups. However, their relationship becomes problematic when he tries to involve her in a plan to smuggle a group of Somali refugees into England via the Eurostar. Filmed in 1997, Solo Shuttle received its first screenings on European television, though it later earned theatrical screenings in London. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The friendship between a pair of buskers is fractured when one of them gets engaged. Prior to that Jean and Kate, who made their living performing comedy routines on the street, were thick as thieves until Jean surprised Kate by telling her that she has accepted the proposal of her musician lover Martin. Whereas Kate is quietly devastated, Jean's upper-middle-class mother is delighted and immediately sets out to prepare a grand and perfect wedding. Much of the ensuing comedy of this Irish-German film comes when Jean has a panic attack and makes a bad choice, the repercussions of which affect not only her relationship with Martin but also with Kate. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

"The Irish are the blacks of Europe, Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Siders are the blacks of Dublin ... so say it loud -- I'm black and I'm proud!" Or so Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) tells his slightly puzzled friends as he tries to assemble a rhythm & blues show band in a working class community in Dublin in Alan Parker's film The Commitments. Jimmy is a would-be music business wheeler and dealer, and he's decided what Dublin needs is a top-shelf soul band. However, top-shelf soul musicians are hard to find in Dublin, so he has to make do with what he can find. However, after a long round of auditions, Jimmy makes two inspired discoveries: Deco (Andrew Strong), an abrasive and alcoholic streetcar conductor who nevertheless has a voice like the risen ghost of Otis Redding, and Joey "The Lips" Fagan (Johnny Murphy), a horn player who knows soul music backwards and forwards and claims to have played with everyone from Wilson Pickett to Elvis Presley. Before long, the band -- called the Commitments -- is packing them in at local clubs. But do they have what it takes to make the big time? Based on the novel by Roddy Doyle, who also co-wrote the screenplay, The Commitments is sparked by fine performances by its young cast and enthusiastic performances of a number of '60s soul classics; the cast, who play their own instruments, reassembled the band for a concert tour after the film became a hit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi