Kneecap (Ireland 2024: Dir Rich Peppiatt)

For anyone thinking that Ireland has become a quiet place after 'The Troubles', think again. The setting of Kneecap may look like the 1970s, but it's actually West Belfast in 2019. Arló Ó Cairealláin (Michael Fassbender), an IRA sympathiser, decides to do a runner when his activities draw the attention of the powers that be. Faking his death, he leaves behind his wife Dolores (Simone Kirby) who gradually falls into depression, and two young sons, played by Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh and Naoise Ó Cairealláin.

Neither lad is set for a career of academic excellence, but two things which they do well are selling (and taking) drugs, and having a penchant for writing lyrics, controversially in the Irish language (the film's legislative background is the formation of, and opposition to, what would eventually become the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022). 

When local music teacher and part time DJ JJ Ó Dochartaigh (who is brought in to interpret for the authorities when Liam refuses to speak English) comes across the pair's notebook, full of Irish Gaelic verse which he can convert into raps over his beats (and help his agenda to spread the word - literally - about the use of the indigenous tongue and counter British imperialism), an unlikely alliance between the three begins. The straight laced teacher, reborn as DJ Próvai (the name derives from the Provo mask he's forced to wear onstage to avoid being recognised) is thrown into a world of new experiences, chemical and musical.

Meanwhile the police, in the stern form of Josie Walker's hard nosed Detective Ellis (also, awkwardly, the mother of Liam's Protestant girlfriend, a relationship that brings its own problems), pursues her relentless enquiries as to the real story behind Ó Cairealláin's disappearance: as the trio, who name themselves 'Kneecap' after the popular skill used by the police for extracting confessions, rise to bigger heights.

The obvious jumping off point for an appreciation of Kneecap is Danny Boyle's 1996 movie Trainspotting, but I'm sure that Peppiatt would tell me to fuck off as that movie is nearly thirty years old. But in its use of fantasy sequences, candid scenes of drug use (or 'misuse' as the BBFC description would have it) and scattergun editorial approach I think the comparison still holds. Kneecap uses splitscreen, ruthless and anarchic editing and, in a scene which made me laugh out loud, claymation to replicate a Ketamine wigout. The three members of 'Kneecap' aka Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvai all play themselves and there's a lot to like about their rudimentary performances and natural humour.

At times the scrappiness threatens to be the film's defining feature and there's a certain episodic quality to Kneecap which occasionally gets in the way of telling the story. But overall this is a riot of a film and Kneecap's music, unknown to this writer and, I suspect, a lot of the viewing audience, carries the whole thing through to its middle finger flipping end. It may be a drug fuelled musical rags to (sort of) riches story, but at its heart Kneecap is something a lot fiercer.

Kneecap is released in UK cinemas on 23 August.