It’s ironic that Fisherman’s Buddies: One And All is so involved with the thought of the troublesome second album. Following up 2019’s stable, light British comedy-drama — primarily based on the true-life story of a bunch of Cornish fishermen who signed to a document label and hit the charts — this second outing is a scattershot return, one which hits acquainted beats and delivers a handful of stable singles, however is weighed down by a surplus of album tracks.

After discovering mainstream success within the first movie, One And All begins with Fisherman’s Buddies reaping the rewards of their success with a UK tour (albeit in less-than-glamorous places like Grimsby). However whereas they’re juggling the twin duties of being skilled singers and skilled seafarers, changing into native celebrities within the course of, there isn’t a happily-ever-after: loss and label strain is looming to shake issues up.

Following a gap act dealing in broad men-out-of-time comedy beats (the largely un-PC group are despatched for media coaching to “drag them into the twenty first century”; a convention name with the label finds Dave Johns’ hapless Leadville by accident having a piss on speakerphone), One And All begins to turn out to be significantly overloaded, establishing extra plot threads than it will probably deal with. Chief Jim (James Purefoy) is more and more inebriated and struggling to course of his father’s demise; label bosses have deemed the group’s second album lacklustre they usually face being dropped; strain to recruit a brand new member causes band tensions; the arrival on the town of Irish singer Aubrey (real-life singer Imelda Could, spectacular in her appearing debut) rubs Jim up the improper manner; Rowan’s (Sam Swainsbury) tour antics with a hen do trigger ruptions in his marriage; label supervisor Leah (Jade Anouka, likeable) is caught between pleasing the higher-ups and trying to whip the group again into form; the promise of a set at Glastonbury hangs within the stability… it’s all an excessive amount of, resulting in a waterlogged runtime and a zig-zagging narrative.

Even with all that extra plotting, there may be a minimum of some heartwarming stuff right here. James Purefoy brings grizzled heat to Jim, and his explorations of grief and rising attraction to Aubrey present real coronary heart. For a stable chunk of time, One And All turns into an amiable, middle-aged romcom between the pair and that focus is welcome — till pointless lashings of additional drama (a mineshaft accident; the inevitable ‘I can’t do that’ break-up) discover the movie treading water once more. Joshua McGuire is commonly enjoyable as label minion Gareth (“I actually can not perform outdoors of the M25!”), the singalongs (once they lastly come) are as rousing as they need to be, and the low-stakes nature of all of it (can the group stand up to Welsh newcomer Morgan being — gasp! — a farmer slightly than a fisherman?) is one thing of a welcome escape. Whereas at instances it appears distinctly like a Sunday-teatime TV drama, it does benefit from the beautiful Cornish coast with some handsomely captured sunsets.

However the good bits are significantly slowed down within the sheer mass of storylines, which means the inevitable Glasto Pyramid Stage finale (the true band performed there in 2011) takes ceaselessly to succeed in — and like a camper who’s spent a number of days wallowing within the mud and staying up all evening, you’ll greater than probably be able to go residence by then. When Fisherman’s Buddies: One And All’s equal of a giant refrain hits, it delivers precisely what it’s supposed for. But it surely actually wanted trimming down from what seems like a double-album’s value of fabric. Nonetheless, the self-referential ‘they’re making a film about us?’ threequel teased within the remaining reel could possibly be enjoyable.