Rating: R | Runtime: 105 minutes
Release Date: August 2nd, 2024 (USA) / August 8th, 2024 (Ireland)
Studio: Wildcard Distribution / Sony Pictures Classics
Director(s): Rich Peppiatt
Writer(s): Rich Peppiatt, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh & Jj Ó Dochartaigh

Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.

After pitching the idea to create a movie based on their lives and music in 2019, writer/director Rich Peppiatt says the trio of Naoise Ó Cairealláin (Móglaí Bap), Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (Mo Chara), and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvai) didn’t take their first acting lesson until six months before production began. “It didn’t go well.” But they were already committed. The project was built for them to play themselves and, honestly, the energy of their music could only ever be recreated by them regardless of acting prowess. All they have to do is be themselves, right? Turn on the lights, lay down a beat, and get out of the way.

The surprising thing, however, is that they are good anyway. At least I think they are. That energy that they bring is a huge factor in their appeal and maybe it does smooth out some of the edges, but you must be looking to rip them apart to truly notice it. Because anyone caught up in the fun of Kneecap (and the politics) isn’t going to call them out for not being “authentic.” Whether on-stage, in bed, or mixing-up cocaine for ketamine, these three unlikely stars are doing their thing. How much of that thing is true and how much is fiction? I don’t know. But a bit of mythologizing doesn’t hurt.

Their story: while Móglaí Bap is tripping after a party gets busted up by the peelers (police), Mo Chara is stuck in holding and refusing to speak English to Detective Ellis (Josie Walker). Is it a political statement due to the ongoing attempt to legalize Irish as a legitimate language in “the north of” Ireland? No. He’s merely a punk kid trying to put the screws to authority. It’s only when his unwitting translator arrives that the idea that this disobedience might mean something beyond a laugh that the tide starts to change. DJ Próvai, a local music teacher, is filling in for his girlfriend (Fionnuala Flaherty’s Caitlin) in this task. One look at Mo Chara’s lyric book and he’s ready to help these “hoods” normalize Irish through hip hop.

The rest is an invigorating ride through drug-addled goggles as they deal with overnight fame and its consequences. Because these aren’t three kids forming a band. It’s two drug dealers teaming up with a respectable teacher unwilling to show his face at concerts stirring up anti-British and pro-Irish sentiment in a city still mired beneath the rubble of the Troubles. Not only that, but you have Detective Ellis searching for Móglaí Bap’s father (a might-be-dead terrorist in Michael Fassbender’s Arlo), a new Republican militia threatening violence towards the boys, and a people divided on whether these raps are helping or hurting the Irish language cause.

Comedy fills all aspects of its sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll moniker too. You have Jessica Reynolds’ Georgia’s kink of roll playing the “colonizer” while Mo Chara declares freedom for Ireland upon climax. There’s the always off-kilter highs of drug mix-ups leading to claymation. And the music (or, I should say, the antics that come along with it) leading senior citizens to marijuana, newscasters to broadcasting messages written on buttocks, and teens to finally thinking Irish might be “cool” after all. Despite those laughs, though, there’s still the looming, violent conflict between police and IRA. So, don’t think there won’t be somber drama, sacrifice, and rebirth along the way.

It’s a story of rebellion. A tale of identity and the courage to fight for its existence against a force that will stop at nothing to prevent its proliferation. This is a match being lit and the reality that some flames burn brighter the more outsiders try to snuff them out. Yes, the history of Kneecap is entertaining, but it’s also important in the context of its power—intentional or not—to give voice to the voiceless. It’s a reminder too that some bullets are more effective as metaphor.

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Mo Chara, DJ Próvai, and Móglaí Bap in KNEECAP; photo by Helen Sloan, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.