Danny Glover, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Stacy Keach, Mary Steenburgen

"This better be some Saturday night," says run-down bar owner Tyrone's assistant.

Nothing is going right for Tyrone (Glover) and unless Guitar Sam can strum life back into his club, life is about to crumble.

And you just know Sam's a no-show.

Writer-director John Sayles has been among the most interesting and consistent of independent film makers over several decades and here maintains his recent form.

The acting pulsates like a throbbing bass line through this fabulous fable set in Alabama in the mid-1950s, with the world on the threshold of rock'*'roll.

Music has always been an important element of most of Sayles' projects, but blistering blues and gritty gospel performances, from the likes of Dr Mable John, Memphis Slim, Keb Mo and others, are at the core of this one.

They capture the deep-heat, 12-bar blues intensity of a kind of life where everything, even picking cotton, has a rhythm.

Glover, currently enjoying a career revival, is superb and briefly performs himself in Going Down Slow.

There are comeback roles, too, for Stacy Keach (probably best known as Mike Hammer) and Mary Steenburgen, last seen mainly in episodes of late-night television's Curb Your Enthusiam.

It's a heady mix, with a real find in newcomer Gary Clark Jnr and, yes, you better believe, there's Good Rockin' tonight!

Now showing at the QFT.