A pleasant little film for most of the time, though it tails away at the end, Tom Hanks' debut as a movie director - he also (mistakenly) plays a featured role - has the same fault as Alan Parker's superior The Commitments. The break-up of the band at such an early stage - in this case even before their first record has reached number one - just isn't believable.
Neither is the break-up of the lead singer (Johnathan Schaech) and his girlfriend (Liv Tyler) so that she can conveniently fall into the arms of the drummer (Tom Everett Scott) who's become the central character in the story.
The music, though, is toe-tappingly good, the recreation of the 1960s more or less authentic and, if the title number is flogged to death, well, that's the way it would have been.
As the boys' manager, Hanks lacks the requisite snarl that an actor like James Woods might have brought to the role.
Best thing in the film is ironically Hanks' wife Rita Wilson as a sultry hostess in a bar.
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