Plot
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.(April 2018) |
White American soul fan John Carloff (John Shea) arrives in Liverpool on a tourist coach: he's there to answer a help ad placed by black Liverpudlian Ritchie Lee (Lenny Henry) regarding setting up a mobile soul disco. Both unemployed, they nonetheless both have something to offer: John has a five-foot-high stack of original soul singles, and Ritchie has disco equipment plus an old ice cream van which has been converted into what he describes as "the Popemobile with attitude."
Although the duo bond over the music and the sense of adventure, things start off badly after they are mistakenly booked for a geriatrics evening entertainment (Ritchie: “How was I supposed to know? The bloke just asked if we were a '60s disco...”) Despite hoping that their next booking will be at "a posh house party in a Wirral mansion", it turns out to be a wedding reception in a Kirkby pub. Ritchie predicts trouble ("a wedding reception in Kirkby is a disaster! There's always some knobhead going through your records... and there's always a fight!”) but the pair turn up. As Ritchie predicts, the reception degenerates into a huge punch-up, and as John and Richie make their getaway, the van breaks down.
Ritchie then introduces John to Kecks (Pete Postlethwaite) a British Rail buffet car attendant with high ambitions who sold the van to Ritchie. After a quick drink (and a "French Revolution"), Kecks tells them to “take it to our kid's in the morning and he will fix it free of charge.” He then offers them a bit of paid work moving some gear from his lock up.
The following night Ritchie and John arrive outside Kecks's lock up to find a strange noise coming from within. ”What's he doing in there, drilling for oil?” Ritchie queries. Kecks appears with a number of parcels that they load into the van and take to Kecks's flat. When they arrive, Kecks tells the lads to go on up to his flat while he locks up their van, but while they're not looking he sneakily hides a parcel in the freezer compartment.
When the parcels are safely in Kecks's flat he gives the lads £20 and says, “er... and if anything else goes wrong with the van, tough shit!“ and closes the door on them. Ritchie and John then head for the nearest pub, commenting how "one minute you're down and then you're up again." As they order their beer, the bartender notes “and then you're right back down again!” as he shows the £20 note as a fake.
They hurry back to Kecks's flat and arrive just as he is trying to leave (wearing a poor-quality disguise). They force Kecks to tell them what's going on. He tells them that he has stolen some printing plates for £20 notes from a villain in London and is about to skip the country with his own little bundle of counterfeit notes, but he's hidden the plates in the van and was going to ring the lads when he was abroad to ask if they would deliver them to a contact in Parkestone. However, since the contact won't be there in till later in the week, they will have to sit on the plates for a few days. When Ritchie protests “That's great, that is! You piss off out of Liverpool and we have to hang about and listen for cockney accents!”, Kecks replies, “Stay mobile."
After being offered £1000 for delivery and another £1000 on arrival, John and Ritchie reluctantly agree to the scheme; but deny Kecks a lift to the airport. On the way out, they pass a couple of guys on the stairs. John and Richie realize that these men had cockney accents, so they head off to Parkestone. The two men - the gangster Kecks is trying to swindle (Johnny Shannon) plus his enforcer and torturer The Chiropodist (Peter Vaughan) - continue up to Kecks, where they kill him.
As John and Ritchie have a few days to travel, they decide to zig-zag to their destination because they are worried about being pursued by the cockney gangsters and the police. On catching a news bulletin, they are startled to discover that the police are looking for two men in connection with Kecks' murder.
En route they stay at a small hotel, complete with racist landlord (Tim Barker) and a llama. Richie implies to the landlord's pretty daughter Susan (Cherie Lunghi) that he and John are musicians travelling with Earth, Wind & Fire. Although Richie is attracted to Susan, it is John's bed that Susan visits. John admits to Susan that he is actually an AWOL pilot with the United States Air Force.
After leaving the hotel, Richie offers a lift to an American soldier named Curtis (Al Matthews) whose car has broken down and who needs a lift to a US base. Mindful of his AWOL status, John becomes increasingly agitated, particularly when Curtis insists that he and Richie join him for a beer inside the base. Curtis then invites them to perform a DJ gig in the soldiers' canteen. Richie is very excited to perform there, but cannot understand John's reluctance. Richie performs alone: during the gig, he takes to the stage as singer with the TAC Wing R&B Allstars, singing "Knock on Wood". Revitalised by the music, John begins to relax. Curtis invites volunteers to perform with the Allstars and Richie persuades John to join him on stage where the two sing "Drift Away" to rapturous applause, and reconcile. One of the soldiers recognizes John.
John and Richie continue to Parkestone to discover that the two gangsters have arrived first and murdered the recipient. The gangsters threaten them with a sawn-off shotgun, but when Richie blunders into a nearby lever, they are plunged into a vat of grain and suffocate.
The police arrive: Richie realizes that they have come for John when he sees military personnel getting out of the police car. John gets into the car without fuss, asking Richie to look after his records. Richie then discovers the plates that Kecks hid.
The last scene occurs months later at the Military Detention Centre in Massachusetts, USA, where John has been detained. Having completed his sentence, he is astonished to find Richie is there. Richie is resplendent in white, and driving a very large American car. Astonished by the change in his friend's circumstances, John asks what has happened: Richie explains, enigmatically, that he was "left some money", and that they have a gig in Pasadena. John points out that Pasadena is 5000 miles away, so Richie replies that they had better get a move on. The car is seen driving away into the distance as the credits roll.
