Kneecap | Dir: Rich Peppiatt | ★ ★ ★ ★
Written and directed by Rich Peppiatt, this fictionalized drama is named after a real-life Irish-language hip-hop trio who supply much of the electrifying soundtrack. They took their name from a popular form of punishment that maimed or disabled a person’s knees during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
The Irish Troubles ended with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Eleven years later in Belfast, with the English language being the official language, groups of people were fighting to regain Irish as the official language.
Arló Ó Cairealláin (Michael Fassbender) teaches his son that “every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom but unfortunately Cairealláin has been in hiding for the last ten years as he is considered a terrorist for being a member of the outlaw Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Apart from being fluent in the Irish language, his son Naoise Ó Cairealláin sells drugs with his friend Liam Óg Ó Hannaigh. They also partake of their stock and when a nightclub they are at is raided, a drug-addled Liam is arrested.
Refusing to speak the Queen’s English to the police interrogators, JJ Ó Dochartaigh, a music teacher at the local high school is called in to be the Irish language interpreter before Liam is released from custody. JJ notices Liam’s notebook has interesting lyrics, as well as a sheet of psychedelic drugs in it, and he pockets it.
JJ shows Liam and Naoise how to put beats to their lyrics and the first Irish Rap group is formed. The unlikely trio becomes the voice of a generation to rage against the political machine that is sending their language to extinction.
Rated ‘R’ for constant drug use, sexual content, nudity, profanity and violence, the members of Kneecap play the three lead actors. And this real in-your-face drama about underdogs blaspheming and fighting for their rights is actually chock-full of humour.
Lezly Herbert
