It’s hard to think a country could marginalize its native language to a point where there must be almost a civil rights movement to bring about its recognition. Kneecap does just that: an origin story about the titular ragtag hip hop band eventually galvanizing Northern/North Ireland to recognize Gaelic (That happens not until 2022).
Kneecap is energized by the sheer casualness of its players, many of whom were originals, and the endearing sloppiness of its production, like the lightness of, say, Spinal Tap. Although the Brit-influenced authorities are determined to stop the raunchy, randy group from promoting the cause, the boys endure censorship, incarceration, and the occasionally tart encounter. They are almost naïve about the consequences.
Along for the more mature take is Michael Fassbender’s Arlo, a father but even more a leader of the language movement, who feigns death for years to escape the authorities. Like the “Troubles” that plagued Belfast and elsewhere for decades that spawned the powerful IRA, this seeming less-bloody uprising has its own gravity, given how language guys like me hold communication in highest regard for solving the clashes across the globe.
Kneecap is entertaining and historically insightful the way Branagh’s Belfast was and differently Jordan’s Crying Game, as a thriller, was for gender awareness and secondarily the Troubles. It’s fun like Hard Day’s Night or Commitments.
Learn something and feel good about young people with a noble purpose.
Kneecap
Director: Rich Peppiatt (Backseat Driver)
Screenplay: Peppiatt et al.
Cast: Moglai Bap (Better Way to Live)
Rating: R
Length: 1h 45m
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take (recently listed by Feedspot as two of the ten best NPR Movie Podcasts) out of WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, Ohio. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com