FILM REVIEW: KNEECAP

We decided to do something different, so headed to the Eye cinema. I hadn’t been very often since Covid, something I realised as I handed over more than the cost of the tickets for Coke and popcorn. To be fair, my grandchildren had warned me.

What brought us to the Eye was the new film which is creating waves across the world – Kneecap. The name of course will resonate with many of us of a certain age, as during the conflict years in the Six Counties, the term, ‘watch your kneecaps’ was code to behave yourself in areas under IRA control.

Domiciled in Belfast in my formative years, I was interested to see how a film set in modern, post-conflict times in that former unionist citadel – now perhaps a republican city – featuring a rap group from West Belfast, would translate to the big screen. After 125 minutes of manic cinematography with Liam og (Moglai Bap),  Naoise (Mo Chara)  & JJ O’Doc (DJ Provai) we left the Eye for a much needed aperitif in the G Hotel to decipher what we had just witnessed.

We live in relatively peaceful times today, bar the recent disgraceful scenes of racist fascists on our streets, but 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, there is a new dynamic in former conflict societies. A new generation of young people have grown up without conflict, and the film highlights this.

In a once divided society there is now a confidence that young people look forward to a better future. The film embraces everything that went before in a highly satirical way, but all through the medium of the Irish language which has flourished in Belfast in an ingenious script written by an Englishman, Rich Peppiatt, who obviously has his finger on the pulse of a post-conflict society.

The film is provocative, challenging, thought-provoking, and creative. It has a brilliant sense of a downtrodden language which was once banned in our schools. That the dialogue would transfix audiences across the pond by winning a gong at the Sundance Film Awards in Utah earlier this year is testament. The film has won rave reviews by no less than the New York Times, Guardian, Hollywood Reporter, Hotpress, Irish Times, Examiner, Rolling Stone, and now even More than 90 Minutes.

In recent months the film had its Irish release at the Galway Film Festival. The lads brought along their ‘retired’ RUC land rover as a stunt. Many will remember these vehicles driving through riots, bombarded by ‘Molotov cocktails’: a trendy term for a Kennedy’s milk bottle filled with petrol in those mad days.

Some older cinema goers might find the film a bit uncomfortable with drugs on tap, spicy language, political messages, guns, and dissidents, but as you seen at Electric Picnic recently and ask any of the thousands of young people who listened to the Wolfe Tones at the Picnic if Kneecap was a fair reflection of life in Ireland in 2024?

The film follows young boys who form a hip hop band and practise in their teacher’s back street studio/garage until it went up in flames. They are the sons of former IRA veterans from the 70’s who were Gods (of a sort) on the streets.

Of course as in any film nowadays there is the love interest, and as in everything mBeal Feirste, it crosses the sectarian divide:  Moglai Bap has exotic high jinks with middle-class Protestant beauty Georgia. She engages in cross-community love, but finds ‘Brits Out’ stamped on his butt cheeks a step too far. Definitely ‘Tiocfaidh ar La’ will have a different meaning after seeing this film.

This is comedy and musical entertainment. The dialogue might cause problems as gaeilge if you are from Connemara, but with sub titles for those of us challenged by our native tongue, it is no problem to follow. It will rock the cinemas this year, and already it has been booked into more cinemas in Ireland than any other film. Keep an eye out for the Academy Awards shortlist in December as ‘Kneecap’ might feature big time.

Finally as we drove home from the ‘G’, Mary and I had a heated discussion on the merits of the film. While I was of the opinion it was Oscar material, she voiced the opinion that while it’s a 16+ film, it promotes the idea delving  into cocaine and ketamine isok?  But as RTE’s Joe Duffy found out last year, no Wolfe Tones song ever made a young person lift an AK47. Likewise, no film should make anyone take up drugs. But that’s a debate which will be discussed for many months as audiences flow to watch Kneecap worldwide.

Paddy McMenamin was born in Belfast with Donegal and Tyrone parents. He spent the 70’s in Long Kesh. He has been going to Paradise since the Benfica game in Nov. 1969. He lived in Donegal for 30 years but now lives in Galway. He returned to University at 50 and became a secondary school teacher of history and English.