With its rambunctious spirit, running jokes about ketamine, and a prominently displayed pair of pallid buttocks daubed with bluntly anti-British sentiment, the fictionalised origin story of real-life Irish-language rap group Kneecap (who play themselves) probably won’t be for everyone. But the combination of the profane and the political, the riotous humour and punchy editing makes for one of the more energising viewing experiences of the year, and possibly one of the funniest.
West Belfast drug dealers Liam and Naoise, part of what Liam’s irony-steeped voiceover describes as “the ceasefire generation”, were taught at an early age by Naoise’s republican father (Michael Fassbender) that “every word of Irish spoken is a bullet for Irish freedom”. It’s a message they took to heart: now the lads use the language as a brick to lob at the cops. It’s this that brings them into contact with JJ Ó Dochartaigh, a music teacher at an Irish-language school who’s drafted in as a translator when Liam refuses to speak English during a police interrogation. JJ spots the potential in the scrawled Irish verses in Liam’s notebook, and soon Liam, Naoise and JJ have adopted the stage personas of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and the balaclava-clad DJ Próvai respectively.
