Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. patella, This music-packed biopic about an Irish hip-hop trio has a story so outlandish that it sometimes makes you wonder if there’s a poetic twist to it. But the film itself rejects the rigid approach of saccharine Oscar-baiting biopics, preferring to blur fact and emotion to deliver a propulsive political adventure. Thank God and all the saints!
Too often, legendary rock stars, pop singers, and musicians are trivialized by a paint-by-numbers approach that fails to capture exactly what made them so compelling in the first place. (For a recent example, see Elvis, Back to Blackand One Love — or don’t.) But patella The film embraces the raw, reckless energy of Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh and JJ Ó Dochartaigh, who go by the stage names Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvaí, so early on, a club scene with flashing lights and hard drug taking spreads to a dark, menacing woods (not nearby but connected) with the police (who the boys call “Peelers”) chasing them.
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By collapsing a nightclub set into a forest that seems plucked from a nightmarish fantasy, director and screenwriter Richard Peppiatt patella It doesn’t play by the rules: hand-drawn graphics pop up on screen to accentuate movements and uncanny similarities, clay animation is used to illustrate the hallucinogenic effects of an ill-timed ketamine hit, and two-time Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender appears on screen alongside the rest of the band playing themselves in the film, adding just a touch of the surreal.
Combined with a soundtrack packed full of Kneecap’s high-octane hip-hop, it creates a head-bobbing urge that’s hard to shake off – but why would you want to shake it off?
“Kneecap” is a fucking fuck to boring biopics and boring vanity projects.
Naoise Ó Céaillain as Moglaí Bap or Naoise and Michael Fassbender as Arlo Ó Céaillain in “Kneecap”.
Credit: Helen Sloane / Sony Pictures Classics
Premise patella To those new to the group’s music, it may sound a bit boring. A few years ago, a controversy erupted over the Irish Language Bill, which would have officially recognised Irish alongside English. As activists and academics rallied for the disappearing language, there was an unexpected revival of the Irish language, with a surge in interest in a band from Belfast who rapped in Irish about drugs, sex and rebellion against British authority, including the police.
Be smart, patella The film weaves this larger political story into the playful personal stories of the three members. Liam Óg serves as the sassy narrator, narrating every scene, including Naoïse’s Romeo and Juliet-like romance with a British party girl (Jessica Reynolds) with a penchant for kinky nights. But the story begins with Naoïse’s baptism, which is raided by police who suspect her father, Arlo (Fassbender), a Catholic radical republican with a penchant for planting bombs in the name of rebellion. Having grown up under the shadow of her father’s politics, Naoïse finds herself caught between pressure from Arlo’s admirers to follow in his footsteps and the grunts of the police who expect her to. As the Irish language was once banned by the British imperialist authorities, Naoïse’s embrace of the language follows her father’s teaching that “every word spoken in Irish is a bullet fired for Irish freedom,” although that may not be how Arlo intended it to be.
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These “Ceasefire babies” are portrayed as corrupt altar boys in the bad streets of West Belfast, with no qualms about that or the Northern Irish Troubles, while JJ is introduced as a middle-aged music teacher bored and dying. A chance encounter on a police interrogation table changes everything: JJ is inspired by Liam’s outspoken lyrics and proud Fenian attitude, and thus a band is born. But their rise is filled with violence, big mistakes and drug-fueled shenanigans. And most of it is just plain fun.
Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí will be playing the fools and getting the excitement going.
Kneecap stars Naoïs Ó Céaráin as Moglaí Bap or Naoïs, J.J. Ó Dochaltaigh as DJ Provaï or JJ, and Liam Óg Ó Hanaidh as Mo Chara or Liam Óg.
Credit: Sony Pictures Classics
patella It was a bold middle finger to director Kenneth Branagh’s biopic set in the North of Ireland. BelfastWhile the world-famous actor-director made classic films based on his childhood, Mo Chara, Mogra Bop and DJ Provay rejected the opportunity to whitewash their image. Instead, they bravely portrayed themselves as fun-loving losers who never shied away from the mayhem that awaited them on the road to stardom.
They show us staggering around the stage, too high from a dime bag mix-up to function. They invite us to laugh at the sexuality that drives them to political orgasms. They literally and figuratively bared their asses, and find it crudely titillating. These three didn’t try to change the country; they sang (or rapped) for themselves, and in doing so, they tapped into an undercurrent of cultural pride and tenacity that connected them to others.
But it’s their raw charisma that connects us to them in the first place. Playing themselves on screen, as so many musicians have failed to do in acting, could have been a disaster. But they excel, playing the comically absurdist scenes as well as the more tender moments with a moving screen presence. DJ Próvaí proves the strongest; his signature stage costume, an Irish flag balaclava, made me think they could have cast a well-known actor in the role. But the whole crew are as good on screen as they are on stage, erupting with humour, music and wildly fun attitudes.
In the end, Peppiatt does a great job not only of shaking off the hyper-serious shackles of musician biopics, but also of embracing the hip-hop energy of his subjects, making them the protagonists and driving forces of the story, propelling it to a climax worthy of a raucous encore in the end credits.
In simple terms, patella It’s sensational, zany, incisive and ultimately sublime.
patella It will be released in theaters on August 2nd.
