Kneecap, the Movie: Our Day Will Come
- Brian Lyons
- Jun 8
- 8 min read
The movie Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt, 2024) starring Michael Fassbinder and the Kneecap band’s trio of Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, is quite unlike any biopic I have seen. Recently, this has included Bob Marley ‘s One Love, which was unfortunately tainted with just enough Hollywood schmaltz as to render it annoyingly benign. Then came the Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. This promised so much more. and its musical interpretation did not disappoint: it was an entertaining display of Dylan’s poetic powers, articulating as it did the spirit of a time when the old order was in decline and change was in the air. Unfortunately, the musician’s lyrical talent, character and sensibility seemed lost in a cloud of existential confusion.
Kneecap is better, miles better, and not necessarily because of the music. Admittedly, I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to rap and hip-hop. At most, I had a fleeting admiration for Eminem but gave all the 00s new stuff a wide berth and arrived at this point carrying some heavy baggage. As for a Belfast band, specialising in hip-hop performed in the Irish language, well, you can just imagine my reaction. Just shows how wrong you can be.
Fortunately, I heard about Kneecap when they hit the news because of their overtly pro-Palestine stance. This led to one of their members, Mo Chara, being charged with an offence under the Terrorism Act, allegedly for displaying a Hezbollah flag. It was not their first run-in with the British state. Previously, under the Tory administration, the then Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, refused the band a funding award of £14,250 on the grounds that the group was unpatriotic. The decision was successfully contested by them in Belfast HIgh Court and the trio donated the proceeds to two youth associations in Belfast, one Protestant and the other Catholic.
So, I decided to take a closer look at them and at least watch the film. Just as well, it was quite uplifting, even rejuvenating I would say.
Like the group itself, the film came out of the blue. My pre-existing skepticism regarding the music was reinforced by the fact that none of the trio had any prior training or experience as actors. If you ever watched the likes of Elvis Pressley or Cliff Richards ham it up in their 1960s films such as Blue Hawaii and Summer Holiday, you might understand why. But then that was probably as much to do with their music as it was their acting ability.
These lads are leagues ahead and their movie’s accolades already comprise seven British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) in 2024, including the top honor—Best British Independent Film. It was on a short list for Oscar nominations but failed to make the cut. The trio’s reaction was typically laconic:
"Fuck the Oscars. Free Palestine.", was their response on social media.
Smashing the glass
The movie tells a cracking good story of Ireland’s peace treaty generation, as seen through the eyes of 3 young Catholic , and mostly working class, kids from West Belfast. The “troubles” are over but these lads' troubles are most certainly not. Ostensibly, this is just a story of a drug-driven, rollercoaster ride through the highs and lows of an Irish rap group. Except, this is not just an Irish rap group but a group that raps largely in the Irish language.
This is the real focus of the movie: the place of the Irish language in a society whose culture was faced with extinction as a result of 800 years of colonisation and occupation. The use of Gaelic in Ireland, along with everything else associated with Irish culture and history, was the object either of derision or direct suppression by the English (and Scottish) colonisation of the island. It was not until after the War of Independence did it experience a partial revival in the 26 counties.
The Administration of Justice (Language) Act 1737, a Penal Law-era statute, prohibited the use of Irish in courts, and this remained in effect in Northern Ireland until its repeal in 2022. Irish was excluded from schools, denied official recognition, and restricted in public spaces. Both governments in Ireland also discouraged Irish-language broadcasting and signage, reinforcing English as the dominant language.
Despite the Good Friday agreement that sealed an end to the armed struggle, the 6-county statelet remained intact, as did much of the prejudice, sectarianism and poverty that flourished during the occupation.
A crucial part of the film’s dynamic is the tension between the Republican old guard and a younger generation reared on republican legend but still profoundly alienated from the institutions of an oppressive state. In part, the movie is a celebration of drink. drugs and sex as a primary recreational activity that gives some kind of pleasure and meaning to the youth. However, the music that emerges out of this constant tension and explodes onto the stage with the track C.E.A.R.T.A. (or RIGHTS in English), combines a defiant celebration of the Irish language revival with a damning critique of the establishment.
The Irish language had still not been recognised by Stormont and it’s everyday use in the British statelet was confined to a paltry 2.4% of the population. Headway was made with the teaching of the Irish language in schools within nationalist areas. However, as the film demonstrates, it barely had relevance to the everyday lives of the younger generation and was barely used outside of the classroom.
One of its teachers, who became the band member DJ Próvaí, articulated this with the observation that the language had become like a dodo entombed in a glass cage, which you could look at but not really touch.
“Someone needs to smash that glass”, he says, alluding to the rappers' lyrics written in Irish, “and set that dodo free so it can live.”
To which, Mo Chara replies, “What the fuck is a dodo?”
Apart from DJ Próvaí, the other two are young working class Catholics. Moglai Bap’s father, Arlo, played by Michael Fassbinder is an ex-commanding officer of the IRA, still on the run and pursued relentlessly by the cops. We first see Arlo at home, as a loving husband and father, playing happily with his young son Móglaí and his childhood friend Mo. Both of them are just kids, dressed as cowboys and listening adoringly to Arlo as he teaches them Irish. That is a story in itself, but then he tries to situate it for the kids within an anti-colonial framework.
Before he leaves, he kneels down to them and urges them to watch a Western movie on the TV.
“But here’s the thing,” he says with a wry smile, “I want you to watch it from the Indian’s point of view.”
The kids smile agreeably.
Fast forward a dozen years or so, and we find Mo being arrested and interrogated by a died-in-the-wool Loyalist cop becoming increasingly irate at Mo’s refusal to speak in English Don’t forget, this is post-treaty and a new police force the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) has replaced the old RUC. But these “peelers”, as the lads call them, are just old wine in new bottles. They are bitterly opposed to change and, as such, totally contemptuous of the Irish language.
At the film’s premiere, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (Mo Chara) had this to say:
"There is a duty of care to the Irish language because it was driven to almost extinction after 800 years of colonialism. We all have a duty of care to it, whether it is speaking it or through music, dance or film."
This was a highly moderated version of how this is presented in the film. Emerging from the barbed wire barricade in the background of their first big gig, DJ Próvaí - sporting his now infamous Republican balaclava - takes centerstage. Any semblance of his former profession as a teacher has been jettisoned as he shouts out:
“Listen you cunts: the Irish language and hip-hop go hand in hand. I don’t give a fuck what anyone says. It gave a voice to the Black people of America. And now it’s giving a voice to fucking Irish speakers.”
As the young audience go wild in their approval, Mo Chara butts in with the riposte:
“But, Móglaí they say we are polticising the language. It was them who politicised it when they fucking banned it! But”, he continues as he leans into the audience, “it’s obvious they failed when you see all the Fenian cunts here tonight.”
The extensive profanity, both here and throughout the film, especially the degrading term of abuse traditionally used by Protestant loyalists, is clearly a nod to what happened when sections of the Black community took ownership of the word nigger. Still, although we know that the tables have turned and the shame has gone, it is a bit of a shocker.
There’s a place for us
The film is a wild, ketamine-laced ride from start to finish. But this is far from being just a musical version of Trainspotting. In this movie, the drug-induced escapades are more of a challenge to authority and the system. Even the most raucous of these seem to critique British rule or highlight the realities of working-class life in Belfast on both sides of the sectarian divide.
There is one hilarious scene where the trio are out of their heads, lying back, and holding hands. A young woman enters the room, offering the possibility of getting their music heard on radio, a potentially breakthrough moment for the group. All of a sudden, the film switches to a stop-motion animated version of the scene - a la Wallace and Gromit - as the 3 characters are transformed into incredulous plasticine versions of themselves. Even then, their response critiques big business’ exploitation of musicians.
The racy element of the movie is provided by various sex scenes between Mo Chara and Georgia, the Protestant niece of the Loyalist cop leading the hunt for Bap’s republican father. Like Belfast itself, the sex is rough and tough, a kind of re-enactment of the process of colonisation and resistance. No quarter is expected and none is given.
While she rides him cowgirl style, she calls him a Fenian cunt and then, when the roles are reversed, he is on top insisting on her changing the British name – Northern Ireland – for the republican term – north of Ireland. Whilst you can’t help but chuckle, you also wonder what in God’s name are they doing together. Is there the remotest likelihood of a common future of any sort, not to mention one involving true love or respect?
Raunchiness and humour aside, it is another chapter in the long story of forbidden love, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, this time replacing the now classic West Side Story with a West Belfast one. The gang culture of the 1950s story set in Upper West Manhattan was notoriously violent and racist, but still mild compared to the violence, prejudice and racist oppression which stalked the streets of Belfast as part of the British occupation.
The fact that even the 2021 version of West Side Story contained only implicit sexual references rather than the explicit ones in Kneecap, is testimony to the different settings and narrative. Paradoxically, however, it is not Mo but Toni - the Puerto Rican Romeo - who died, and you sense that there really is a place somewhere and sometime for Mo and Giorgia. The energy of the film and the fighting spirit of the young protagonists suggest the place is here and the time is now.
Apart from a few moments of tenderness which occasionally punctuate the couple’s unquenchable lust, this youthful hope for the future, is represented by Georgia’s defiant anti-sectarianism.
There is a particularly poignant scene towards the end where Georgia, and her aunt confront one another across a large dinner table with a large bowl of soup in the middle. When Georgia asks what the problem is, her aunt replies:
“The same as always, you mix green and orange and you get brown, nobody likes brown.”
Georgia’s reaction speaks far louder than the words. Her refusal to take the soup is symbolic of an historic shift that is bubbling below the surface. Like so many ugly features of the Protestant ascendancy, the practice of souperism as it was known, took place during the Great Famine, when starving children were fed in exchange for converting to the Protestant faith. As Georgia leaves the table she stands up against this powerful symbol of religious and social coercion.
This makes the figure of Mo even more of a bug bear for her deeply jaundiced and vindictive aunt, who proceeds to arrest and handcuff Mo prior to beating him up in the prison cell. Her baton blows are incessant but Mo will not be cowed. Responding only in Irish, which fuels her wrath even further he declares: “Our day will come!”. As his face becomes ever more bloodied and battered, he envisions Giorgia on top of him in bed. This triggers an epiphany when he realises the depth of his feelings for her. It is then that he finally speaks to his torturer in English, but only to say the words: “I fucking love her”.
So yeah, it is a kind of romance, but on a bed of nails rather than roses.
As some uniformed cops enter the cell to end the beating, we see the astonished face of the aunt, completely aghast at what the future might hold. That is not the end of the film but you do feel it heralds the end of British colonial power and division.
Kneecap is available to stream on Netflix.
Further reading
Black Dwarf is home to a number of articles related to this movie. Just click on the links below.
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