review for The Van on AllMovie

Set in 1990 before the economic resurgence of the Emerald Isle, Stephen Frears' adaptation of Roddy Doyle's novel is a richly comic take on the chaotic world of a pair of marginalized friends in a working-class Dublin neighborhood. Bimbo (Donal O'Kelley) has just been fired and Larry (Colm Meaney) is on the dole, so they decide to become entrepreneurs, refitting a decrepit van as "Bimbo's Burgers." Although compared to the previous films made from his books --The Commitments (1991) and The Snapper (1993) -- this is Doyle lite, the odd-couple pairing of the conscientious, hardworking O'Kelley and veteran profligate and layabout Meaney is inspired. Confined for days on end within the tiny ambit of their workplace, it's only a matter of time before their differences begin to drive the friends apart. Against a gently satirized backdrop of the football-mania triggered by the presence of the Irish team in the 1990 World Cup, the film limns a milieu where despair and want are kept at bay by resiliency, humor, stout, and a tightly knit community. In a film that is uniformly well-acted, the two leads are brilliant.