A family of ersatz, Eastern European musicians, with little talent beyond their 18-inch long pointed shoes and matching pompadours, tries to strike it rich in the New World, where anything goes, or so they hope. The episodic non-plot simply puts the unlikely ensemble in some equally unlikely settings (seedy urban truck stops, and so forth), and that, in or out of a nutshell, is the entire film.It's certainly the most accessible effort yet from the prolific Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, but this sort of deadpan irreverence can only be stretched so thin, and after a (short) while too much of the material is merely repetitive. Kaurismaki has often been called his country's answer to Jim Jarmusch (who appears here in a memorable cameo as a used car salesman), but on the evidence of this fitfully amusing one-joke novelty he may be embracing the comparison a bit too close.

My wife Irene, and myself, (Robert Morris) owned "The Lonesome Bar" in Memphis where part of the movie was shot. This is where they performed "Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay" and my buddy, George Kunkle played the banjo and sang one of his songs. The barber was Bill Robertson, who was a real barber next door to the bar. He passed away shortly after the film came out, but it allowed him to sing in a international film. The whole cast and crew was wonderful! We played pool and got drunk every night after shooting. One night we sat on the curb out front and took turns picking and singing our favorite songs. That was a experience I will never forget.We hope you like the movie, as we will never forget it.Colonel Robert morris

It's a funny movie, providing some good laughs, a little weird, but a work of genius!Not very good actors, but it's what makes the movie so good, that it handles parody by doing it seriously!!Some weird scenes, but funny and good jokes, like the bar where it first stood "Singer wanted" and when the band was through with the gig, the sign said "Club Zchivago...for sale", one of the best jokes I've seen, but it's just me!The movie deserves the same acknowledge as "Blues Brothers"-movie, but unfortunately, finnish movies do not (except for the "Winterwar")

Let's say it : it's cheap and absurd. But it's so cheap and absurd that it becomes some kind of surrealistic. Black humor at his best, with silences that means a lot. Cheap and dirty settings shows a darker side of the United States, which is fine wuth me. Very funny music! Love it! But I don't know really why...