Irish to Speak: KNEECAP

Kneecap is one of those movies that teaches you something, although you certainly won’t be seeing this in schools. It introduces the audience to people and a subculture you might not’ve known about, but could be glad to discover. It’s based on a true story from around a decade ago in Northern Ireland about two teenage drug dealers who end up forming a rap group with a high school music teacher. Improbable, perhaps, but not impossible. More unusual is the language in which they rap: authentic indigenous Irish, at a time when the government refuses to acknowledge it as a legitimate language and, indeed, British elements in their country view it with a deep suspicion. These hoodlums run amuck snorting powders and snogging young ladies, but they have a love of their language that expresses itself in swaggering poetry of the sort imported from American hip-hop. The teacher, for his part, loves making beats, and is engaged in the political agitation for making Irish an official language of Northern Ireland. He sees in these boys a chance to bring his two passions together. Besides, he likes getting youthful stupidity back in his life, throwing himself into some of their more juvenile habits as they become intergenerational pals. (There’s a bit of a fun generation gap at play, too, like when he drops references to Dr. Dre or Abbey Road and they sail over the lads’ heads.) Calling themselves Kneecap, they start the underdog road to niche success, drawing the expected controversies any rappers exalting drugs and revolution alike attract. The movie, which stars the band as themselves in surprisingly charismatic and believable performances, ends up following a lot of the usual musical biopic beats. But its style and tone are enlivened by a cultural specificity and a raucous energy. Writer-director Rich Peppiatt takes his cues from their vulgar lyrics and rough-around-the-edges personalities—as well as a rooting in The Troubles that still linger in sociopolitical tensions in their town, from an estranged revolutionary dad (Michael Fassbender) to a girl (Jessica Reynolds) whose British roots give her fling with one of the fellas a naughty charge she loves to cultivate. The movie hops and bounces with a pattering narration, visual jumpiness like Danny Boyle-lite, and little animated filigrees or super-imposed handwritten embellishments, keeping things light and joyful even as the darkness of addiction and sectarian violence bubbles up. It’s basically as if Trainspotting was also A Hard Day’s Night. If it’s not quite as good as that sounds, it’s not for lack of trying. It’s a vibrant, vulgar ode to free speech that ends with a lovely syllogism: language makes stories, and stories make nations. I got a little misty eyed right there, even before the narration even draws its final conclusion.