KNEECAP
The New Parkway Theater
474 24th St.
Oakland
Settle in, but not too deeply, because you are in for a ride. The new film Kneecap is a romping, ear-and-gut-and-tear-busting wallop, tracing from the early lives of the band Kneecap’s founders Naoise and Liam Og (Móglaí Bap) and into the early days of their now famous Irish hip-hop group, backed by unexpected third member DJ Próvai (JJ Ó Dochartaigh). These rambunctious, cheeky, ketamine-loving miscreants also happen to be smart, angry at the British, and versed in Welsh, a dying language and deeply important part of their heritage. Cue the mayhem, and wear your stomping boots.
I was introduced to the trio last fall via a review by one of our LA writers, and, like her, became instantly infatuated with their energy: how fun is it to rage against the establishment(s), and with a beat to back it? Add the boundless enthusiasm these boys have for creating a scene and voicing the silenced woes of the oppressed and you have a great set of tunes to dance to as the world burns. Before you know it, you may be setting some of those fires.
Released at the beginning of the year at festivals and the start of August for the public, KNEECAP the film is a high-octane, perfectly soundtracked (duh) hour and forty-five minutes of Irish history, human tenderness, quippy one-liners, and a peak into the tension between the Irish and the Brits.
It begins with a bang, a fitting, and fairly accurate, introduction to our heroes. The plot, a fictionalized version of the group’s real story, clings close to the troubled and slightly troublesome boys. We watch them (attempt to) evade arrest, stick the finger to the peelers (cops), and do a whole bunch of drugs in just the first few minutes, a frenzy, before pulling back into the slightly slower pacing the rest of the film follows. Beautiful, tight shots of contemplative (or very, very stoned) faces, cheekbones cutting the sweetly saturated neon lights of nightlife.
The boys, playing younger versions of themselves, are excellent in their first feature roles. With the support of veteran actors like Michael Fassbender as Naoise’s father and Josie Walker as the twisted and pesky detective, their deep intimacy is magnified, the tension and love palpable, often bordering on homoerotic but forever skirting just to the side into brotherly territory.
I’ve seen several publications refer to the group as a contemporary, Irish version of early Eminem. While I am no scholar of hip-hop nor of Eminem’s discography, I can say that the anger and intensity wrought by his American tongue rings very differently to my ears: my middle school years were soundtracked in part by the white American rapper, my wealthy suburban classmates finding meaning for their rich kid problems in his lyrics. Angsty myself, I heard the destruction. A drive for the personal and the global: a need to burn the whole town down, and get bloody doing it. KNEECAP may be espousing some similar ideas, and they may feel just as personal, but their message feels like a cleansing fire, a prescribed burn; Eminem’s a raging chemical monstrosity with no calming agent in sight, destruction for the sake of it with no healing to come.
My biggest hang-up with the film came in the form of a deeply under-examined mother: a badass and broken-down woman with a spine of steel and lines like “No, I’ll wait for the big sleep.” Naoise’s maternal figure was in the shadows, emerging triumphant finally at the finish, feeling deeply unresolved and caricatured to me. Serving as a foil to the fictional father expertly and excruciatingly played by Fassbender, she was a shell of a person, and especially given the group’s 2021 track dedicated to their mothers, I found this an unfortunate oversight.
Overall though, the film did not suffer from these small setbacks. “Gorgeous,” said one viewing companion, a film nerd of Cornish descent. “The best,” said the other, previously unaware of the band’s existence, now perhaps their loudest proponent on the streets of Oakland.
KNEECAP is playing in select theaters everywhere, find a location near you here.
