Neither had I any idea about the existence of Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap nor the struggle the people of Ireland had to go through to establish Irish as a legitimate language. Yet, I found myself highly engrossed by director Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap, which tells a semi-fictional story about how the rappers Naoise, Liam, and JJ rose to fame during the same tumultuous period when a whole lot of Irish were people trying to save their language from extinction. The two things are, of course, integrally connected, which makes the crux of this film. What further works out in its favor is the actual trio playing themselves in the movie. Despite not being professional actors, they’ve done a phenomenal job. It’s a risk that has paid off superbly. Complementing that, we have seasoned Irish actress Simone Kirby delivering a magnificent performance in the role of Naoise’s mother, and Michael Fassbender nailing it as the anarchist dad. Fassbender’s presence in Kneecap is not at all stunt casting, by the way. Despite limited screen presence, his role has a lot of meat to it, and Fassy even gets to have a cool heroic moment, a la Inglorious Basterds and X-Men: First Class.
Kneecap, thanks to all its rawness, instantly catchy music, magnetic editing, and searing visuals, is an exciting watch, but there’s every chance of you finding yourself confused, unless you’re well versed with the history behind it. I absolutely don’t claim to be an expert in that matter, but since getting this assignment, I’ve done my fair share of research, which has certainly come in handy while watching the film. That has given me the confidence to dissect the movie in this article.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in the Movie?
Cinema usually represents the city of Belfast as a place filled with chaos and explosions, but our narrator, Liam, tells us he has a much different story to tell. It opens with his best mate Naoise getting baptized at the secret mass rock, a location chosen by his father Arlo, thanks to its historic significance to Irish Catholics secretly practicing their native language, going against the British rules. Years later, Arlo is a fugitive who may or may not be dead, while Naoise and Liam are spending their days selling narcotics and dodging the police. In Arlo’s absence, Naoise’s mother, Dolores, has become severely depressed and lost all her will to live.
Meanwhile, JJ is a teacher at a local school, while his wife, Caitlin, is an Irish language activist who’s doing everything in her power to give the language its recognition. Liam and JJ have a chance meeting at the interrogation room of the police station, where the kid has been detained by the police and is refusing to speak anything but Irish, so JJ is brought on as a translator for the English-speaking authorities. For police detective Ellis, that backfires heavily as JJ is instantly drawn to the ethos of Liam; soon, they end up at JJ’s studio. He happens to be quite a musician who’s looking for a kick in his otherwise mundane life. And Liam happens to have a yellow notebook filled with rants scribbled in Irish. It’s a match made in heaven, and you add Maoise into the mix, and voila, the band is formed. The name ‘Kneecap’ comes from Liam, who has already told Georgia, a spirited girl with whom he regularly hooks up, that they’ve got a gig and that’s the name he could’ve thought of. Much later in the movie, it gets revealed that Georgia is Ellis’ niece, in a dramatic manner. Liam and Georgia have this politically charged erotic thing going on where they get off by screaming slogans while they’re at it; talk about adding flair to the already fiery narrative!
Is Arlo Alive?
A good movie should never waste someone like Fassbender, and it wouldn’t be right if he’d had a two-flashback scene arc here. Arlo being secretly alive and keeping in touch with Naoise only makes sense for the narrative. He’s on the run for sure, but he’s relishing every bit of it, as him not getting caught (dead or alive) is a huge statement, given his stature. What doesn’t seem right though is his disapproval of Naoise’s hedonistic lifestyle and indulgence in drug dealing. Speaking of drugs, there’s this paramilitary group, Radical Revolution Against Drugs, aka the RRAD, who’re breathing down on Liam and Naoise’s necks and threatening them to stop the dealing. Especially after Kneecap gets a bout of popularity thanks to Georgia making the trio viral after posting a video of their performance, RRAD gets even more furious as it pretty much gives Liam and Naoise the opportunity to deal more openly. One might argue about the movie’s glorification of drug use, considering we see Liam, Naoise, and JJ heavily relying on Ketamine during their performances, but that only makes the whole thing look real, and I don’t think a movie like Kneecap has any sort of moral responsibility, as long as it stays to the truth. The movie also sort of mocks the typical “guy who has the drugs” trope by introducing the character of Postman, who’s literally one by profession, except he’s also skillfully supplying the goods to the customers.
Why Does JJ Lose His Job?
There’s a scene in Kneecap where JJ gets stopped on the road by Ellis, with the excuse of breath-analyzing. Of course, Ellis is basically trying to threaten him for his association with Liam and Naoise. She even ends up terming the whole thing a midlife crisis and warns him to not be a lowlife scum. That’s not all; Ellis goes on describing the music as if the Beatles were terrible. JJ not only ignores her; he boldly eventually turns that label into a song. He continues to wear an Irish flag balaclava though, as he goes on the stage as this enigmatic DJ Provai. He obviously doesn’t want his wife and his colleagues at school finding out about this.
Funnily enough, Caitlin and JJ are actually fighting for the same thing. JJ came up with the idea of doing Irish hip-hop only after finding out a bunch of kids at the school were pretty much sleeping through an old Irish song. That made him realize that, in order to make the argument strong for their beloved language, something radical must be done. Kneecap happened to be a result of that. Caitlin’s way of fighting for the establishment of the Irish language is much different from her husband’s, and free of profanity. She wants to do it in the right way, and believes that Kneecap is actually a bad advertisement for the language. There’s a hilarious scene of Caitlin lecturing Liam and Naoise about the ill effect of their music under the current circumstances, and JJ is sitting with a poker face, unable to say anything. Even though it does seem like a crisis at first, as the story progresses, JJ finds courage and makes this thing his purpose—so much so that he wouldn’t hesitate using the school equipment to record a song with his bandmates and effectively getting fired. At this point, he doesn’t care about the job anyway. Fortunately for him, not only does Caitlin come around; she reveals that she always knew that her husband was one of the Kneecappers. Even though her way of reaching the goal is different, she supports him because she sees how happy he is. It was never just a midlife crisis for JJ after all; he’s just someone who was supposed to find his true calling a bit later in life.
Does Arlo Save His Son From Getting Murdered?
As Kneecap keeps getting popular among the regular Irish people and almost starts quite a revolution, both the police and RRAD start losing their marbles. For Ellis, it becomes personal after she accidentally walks in on Georgia and Liam going at it. Hurting Liam turns into her motto of life. This is a great depiction of misuse of power on screen, and the actress, Josie Walker, has done a terrific job here. Meanwhile, RRAD, who (I’m actually referring to the whole bunch here) claims to be the biggest fanboy of Arlo, makes an appearance at his funeral, which is only arranged to throw the police off as per the man’s instructions. Expectedly, all three kinds of people—those who believe Arlo is alive, those who think he’s dead but will remain forever in their hearts, and cops posing as civilians—attend the occasion. Naoise is high as a kite during it and imagines the RRAD openly shooting him for drug dealing. RRAD does fire into the air to show authority and warn everyone. However, the organization shows their true colors when they find out Liam and Naoise are making quite a hefty sum of money as drug dealers due to their growing popularity as musicians. It’s funny how they become instantly ready to snip off the “Against Drugs” part from their name because, before anything, they’re radical revolutionaries. Their justification is that revolution needs money, which is not spelled out directly, but you get the drift. Be it Kneecap or RRAD or Arlo or Caitlin, everyone here is fighting for one thing, even though there’s this concoction of internal conflicts on. RRAD are more opportunistic than they claim to be, especially when they don’t hesitate to order Liam and Naoise to work for them. That would have still been alright, but the organization happens to have the audacity to ask Kneecap to put a full stop in their musical careers. That’s something that isn’t going to sit right with our heroes. The moment you see Liam and Naoise sneakily recording the conversation, you know for a fact that they’re onto something.
Things further escalate when, just before recording a new song for the Irish radio, JJ’s studio is burned down. They suspect it’s RRAD, but the organization denies the allegation, and later, you find out that it is in fact Ellis who was taking it out on Liam. Of course, the band manages the situation and still churns out a banger, which they record at JJ’s school (which leads to JJ getting fired). But the radio backs out at the last moment and refuses to play the song due to extreme profanities. Seeing the Kneecappers hurt, Dolores finally gets out of her home and runs a campaign by herself and effectively organizes a huge concert. At the concert, Kneecappers play that song that was supposed to be on the radio, and it’s an instant hit with the audience. Then they bring out the wild card—that recording of RRAD ordering them to sell drugs—and play it to the gallery—that too mixing it with DJ beats. Present in the audience, RRAD gets furious, and this time, they come after the Kneecappers. As a riot breaks out, the trio run for their lives and get separated. JJ gallantly charges the police, only to get caught and beaten up. Liam is arrested, and Ellis beats him black and blue, but Liam takes it all by imagining Georgia doing it to him while also realizing that he is, in fact, in love with Georgia.
During Kneecap’s ending, Naoise is kidnapped by RRAD, who takes him to an alley to do the obvious. Arlo, who was already in the audience during the concert, makes an appearance and tricks the RRAD into believing that he wants to punish his own son. They hand him over the gun, and in a matter of a few seconds, Arlo turns the tables on them while (rightfully) taunting them about being farsighted. Earlier, in one of the less chaotic scenes of the movie, we see Arlo keep speaking in English while Naoise keeps asking him to talk in Irish. In stark contrast, we see Arlo teaching little Naoise and Liam about the importance of the preservation of their language. For him, the language represents freedom, and every word spoken in Irish is like a bullet. It only makes sense that Arlo would speak in Irish during Kneecap’s climax. Sure, he does end up in jail for the killing, but he has achieved what he always wanted—for him and everyone. The cultural significance of Kneecap is immense, considering the fact that so many people in the world don’t even know about the existence of the Irish language, let alone what the people endured in order to save him. That’s a riveting piece of modern-day history out there, and cinema is the only thing that can take it to the world.
