Watching Kneecap on St. Patrick's Day

Monday was Saint Patrick's Day. Despite my tendency to embrace certain levels of hedonism, I do have a rule that I try to stick to: Don't go to work hungover. Since Saint Pat's was on a weeknight, I didn't plan to get drunk. Instead, I went to the movies.

The Hollywood Theatre is an independent cinema on the west side of the city. It was screening Kneecap, an Irish movie that I'd been waiting to watch for over a year. It made waves at Sundance 2024, winning the NEXT Audience Award. Since I'd first heard the premise and seen the balaclava-wearing stars, I knew that I had to see this movie. It's taken forever for it to reach us across the pond, so I was thoroughly excited about the chance to watch it, especially on the big screen with a raucous crowd!

The experience at the Hollywood Theatre was not what I imagined. This theatre doubles as a bar and it's in a neighbourhood with a strong Irish population, so I expected some general rowdiness. Yet, it was surprisingly tame. There was one guy wearing a full green suit and a couple others in those big hats that look like green pints, as well as a few young Irish people on dates. Still, the crowd was relatively mute considering the holiday and the movie we were about to watch. An Irish friend told me that there could even be singing during the movie, which brought to memory the great experiences I'd had watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but that didn't happen. Instead, coat check was $5, the popcorn was excessively salty, the seats were rickety, and the Guinnesses were "on special" for $12. The Hollywood Theatre is lucky that Kneecap was such a great movie, or I would've had more to complain about.

The story follows three guys from Northern Ireland (North of Ireland, as they'd call it) who decide to form a rap group that utilizes the authentic Irish language. The two main boys are Liam and Naoise, best friends since childhood. Naoise's father, played by Michael Fassbender, teaches the boys that each word of Irish spoken is a bullet for Irish freedom. When they grow up, these friends care most about drugs, music, and sticking it to the British. Naoise's famously militant father naturally tied the boys to The Troubles and Irish unity. They understood the struggle of the previous generation and chose to take it on as their own, despite The Troubles officially ending in 1998. With the support of JJ, a music teacher at an Irish-speaking school, they decide to form a rap trio and this movie is about their rise to fame during the late 2010s. Their rap group is named Kneecap, after the torture method used by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) during The Troubles, and they plan to update the pro-Irish rebellion for the new generation.

It's tough to know how much of the band's ideology belongs to the boys and how much was handed down from Naoise's father. It's clear that Naoise wants to make his father proud, and there's themes of intergenerational trauma—the struggles of the past generation being handed down to the next. There's also a strong sense of family. Despite Naoise being a frequent drug taker, jobless, not going to school, and generally being a degenerate, he still looks after his agoraphobic mom and assists his technically dead father. As for his relationship with Liam, there is almost no conflict between these friends. It's this lack of confrontation, among other plot choices, that made me wonder how much of this story is real and how much is contrived to tell us only what Kneecap wants us to know.

The characters in this movie are based on real life. There is a real band named Kneecap and its members, Móglaí Bap (Naoise), Mo Chara (Liam), and DJ Próvaí (JJ), play themselves in the movie. Although a biopic, I would not go as far as to say that this is a true story. I'm not an expert on the band; I'd never listened to them before the movie. But, as stated previously, the contrived nature of the story is a little too good to be true. I have a feeling that there's a decent amount of self-mythologizing going on. That's not a bad thing, but it also means that what you see in this movie, especially as it pertains to the plot outside of the band's rise to fame, should be taken with a grain of salt.

I also couldn't help but notice the irony of this staunchly anti-English movie being supported by the British Film Institute, but that's the harsh realities of the movie industry. Is it more important to stay true to your roots or to get your authentic message out to the world, even if that means taking money from the very people you fight against? This is one aspect of the film that Kneecap couldn't self-mythologize. It's also not like BFI were the only producers; there were also a handful of indie Irish production companies that helped bring Kneecap to life. Perhaps the band saw this movie as a way to infiltrate a system that has consistently suppressed their ideology and language.

Although fresh, youthful and funny, Kneecap is also steeped in Irish history, but it's not just a rehash of Kenneth Branagh's Belfast. The movie gives a totally unique perspective on Ireland, The Troubles, and the Irish community now that The Troubles are over. The scars of these traumatic experiences do not heal quickly. As such, there are undercurrents of political outrage all through Northern Ireland, according to Kneecap. Yet, it also feels like a past-generation problem, like the kids don't need to fight the same way their parents did. There aren't armed conflicts in the streets, no car bombings, no kneecappings. That doesn't mean that the sentiments of that era are gone. A band like Kneecap is here to keep them alive, but with a new twist.

Full disclosure, I went into this film thinking that Irish was just an accent; I didn't realize that it was also its own language that requires subtitles for us non-Irish to understand. Turns out, the Irish language is quite a contentious thing. There are two battles taking place in Kneecap—the band trying to encourage the younger generation to use the Irish language, and DJ Próvaí's girlfriend (Fionnuala Flaherty) fighting the battle in the legislature to have the language recognized by the Crown. Despite its very long history, it wasn't until 2022 that the United Kingdom signed a resolution recognizing Irish as an official language.

What Kneecap does best, and what makes it a must-see movie, is its messaging. I'm not an Irish historian and I take no side when it comes to Irish unification, British loyalty, et cetera et cetera. But what I do support is putting guns down and using words as weapons. That's what is at the centre of Kneecap. Remember this concept, next time you think of submitting an AI-generated Peliplat article. No matter how uneducated, how ridiculous, how crude your writing, if your words come from a place of truth, they are infinitely more powerful and more revolutionary than anything a computer can output. Words have a very well-known ability to change things, and language as resistance is a real and beautiful thing. Just ask Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí. They're a living testament to the power of staying true to your language and using your words to incite change. I'm not saying that this rap group directly caused the 2022 resolution, but their ability to engage the younger generation into appreciating their language certainly helped the cause.

The credits rolled and I was amazed. It was one of the most energetic and fun movies I'd seen in a long while. I expected the party to keep going, but everyone in the Hollywood Theatre just gave the movie a round of applause and shuffled out of the theatre. It wasn't even worth sticking around for another $12 Guinness. I walked home, past a handful of Irish pubs that were packed and had lineups at the door. "Well," I thought, "at least I'll feel good tomorrow."

Kneecap might not be the most original story—it follows similar beats to many music biopics, especially hip-hip biopics like Straight Outta Compton, but what it has more than anything is truth behind its purpose. By being true to themselves, their language and their upbringing, Kneecap were able to create a totally unique story. They introduced large swaths of the world to the Irish language, displayed what it's like to take ketamine, and reminded the world that the Northern Ireland resistance is not over, it's only changed form. And that's what makes this movie so memorable. Truth, energy, and entertainment, more than story, cinematography, and great acting, can make a movie legendary.