Almost every film that attempts to straddle multiple lines or genres struggles to execute on any. Shockingly, Kneecap doesn’t suffer this fate despite feeling like a wager between a movie executive and the titular rap group that they could make every type of picture in an hour and forty-one minutes.
In West Belfast, the members of political rap group Kneecap are struggling in their own personal ways under oppressive British rule. Each member fights their best to overcome the place they live as it targets their lives whether self-inflicted, inherited, or governmentally imposed. A chance encounter puts the three men into each other’s lives and despite their best efforts to be degenerate hoods, they become a leading voice in the movement to preserve Gaelic from being phased out by the English government.
It is easy to see the background of director Rich Peppiatt, as a documentary and music video guy, throughout the film. That gritty, almost guerrilla-style filmmaking grounded the picture effectively while creating an air of immersion that might fail in any other story, but for Kneecap, it was perfect.
Similarly new to filmmaking are Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, and D.J. Próvai, aka Kneecap. Did I forget to mention that this movie is told as a biopic about a real music act, starring that group? Yep! While I would stop distinctly short of suggesting awards, their performances are far closer to Eminem in 8 Mile than I expected. To paraphrase that sentiment: come for Kneecap the rappers, stay for Kneecap the actors.
Anchoring the off the rails narrative is an incredible supporting cast delivering uplifting performances while raising very scene’s credibility. Despite limited screen time for Michael Fassbender and Simone Kirby (His Dark Materials), their intense emotions in the characters take a good movie into another stratosphere.
I wanted to save the narrative as I am still trying to figure out how a movie that is less than two hours long can cover so much ground while being a coherent and amazing journey. Without spoiling story, Kneecap is what you would get if the recipe called for Dead Poets Society, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 8 Mile, The Boxer, Superbad, and Straight Outta Compton were all put in a blender with Irish whiskey and ketamine. Combine that with a majority of the film being in that same Gaelic being phased out under British rule. All of this while being hyper aware of itself, the unintentional people’s voice of a political movement they became, and never straying from the group who they have always been, except that now they piss off the establishment on a global scale rather than track by track in dive bars. Erin go bragh!
Every part of me expected a simple raunchy comedy from Kneecap. What I experienced was an insane, funny, and heartwarming story of perseverance. I have never watched something that simultaneous made me wish that my grandfather, Francis Joseph Jonathan Dunleavy with origins just west of Dublin, has been alive to see (heritage) and makes me so thankful he wasn’t (drugs), yet it is one of my favorite movies for 2024.
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