Kneecap

This middle-aged man brought his teen son to see the Kneecap movie and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was funny and engaging, i.e. There weren't any slow parts. By the time the ending came, I was wanting more, at least a post-credits extra scene. I am also a fan of the music and particularly enjoyed the many parts of the movies when the movie theatre volume revved up and we got to hear their Irish language rapping on the big screen.

I'm American so I need to point out that non-Irish folks need to brush up on their knowledge of the history including the Troubles which thankfully culminated in the 90s with the Good Friday agreement, as well as what's been going on in the North of Ireland/Northern Ireland the last several years, if you want to appreciate all the funny jokes and references. The complicated history can't be reduced to a couple of paragraphs but I'll try anyway. The English colonized Ireland and did all the terrible things that colonizing powers do - they stole land and resources, dispossessing the natives, and doing their best to eliminate Irish culture. Not that many centuries ago, the English made it illegal to speak the Irish language, practice Catholicism or even do Irish dancing. Catholics couldn't vote. Rebellion attempts were brutally stamped out. The English also stamped out rebellion attempts in Scotland. The English then "planted" hundreds of thousands of loyal lowland Scots and English in the resource rich North of Ireland. (The English meanwhile did their best to attempt to eliminate Highland Scottish culture (look up the euphemism "Highland Clearances") which is very similar to Irish culture due to the Irish culture/language spreading across the Irish Sea in their own time of expansion going all the way back to the 5th century. In fact, the Irish are responsible for giving Scotland its name but that's another story.)

Previous invaders to Ireland (Celts, Vikings, Normans) arrived with their own different cultures but eventually all got assimilated and became Irish. The plantation, however, worked - a distinct British, loyalist, pro-Union culture/nation formed in the North of Ireland and remains there to this day.

Throughout the island of Ireland, however, times were awful under British rule. Native Irish had their lands stolen, and many were given the option to rent a small portion of their former lands with exorbitant payments owed to the British landlords. The Brits changed the very economy to suit their own profits. Many native Irish farmers were forced to specialize in growing potatoes on their poor lands because it seemed easy to do so. Unfortunately in the 1800s a blight hit the potato crops leaving them inedible. Without food to eat or sell, the Irish starved or emmigrated. What about the fish in the waters around the Island or in the Irish streams or rivers? Under armed guard, the British had them exported. Although there were some charitable English subjects who sent help, the English/British government adopted a laissez-faire approach, explicitly stating the "Famine" was the Irish's own fault, that they were reproducing too much thanks to their Catholic views, and that they should be left to die for the sake of population control. In some places where food was sent for the needy, in order to receive the food you had to convert to Protestantism.

One of the worst parts of English/British rule was that there was no compulsory education. When you want to keep a nation down, by all means do not encourage education. A nation that was once considered the land of saints and scholars where people from across Europe would go to study was in desperate times.

Living conditions did improve for the Irish from the mid-1800s Potato "Famine" (Or was there never really was one since there was plenty of food exported by the Brits?)

In 1916, the Irish had an uprising. Initially, many Irish did not even support the uprising but that changed when the Brits handled it terribly, turning the rebels into martyrs. By the 1920s, the Irish got the Free State, but they had to give up a chunk of the North in the process. A gerrymandered pro-British, loyalist majority was created by literally drawing a line in the grass, so to speak. By the late 1940s the 26 counties formed the Irish Republic and got its independence, but those 6 gerrymandered Northern Counties remained Northern Ireland, or what nationalists would consider the "North of Ireland."

In the 1960s, in Northern Ireland, some pro-British loyalists/unionists who were almost all Protestant, started attacking Catholics. (See the movie Belfast which, while make believe, fairly represents some of the sectarian violence). British troops were actually sent in to protect Catholics, some of whom warmly received them. Again, the British troops screwed up, sided with the loyalists, colluded with the corrupt Royal Ulster Constabulary police force which was comprised almost exclusively of loyalist Protestants, and suddenly the IRA resurfaced to fight back and attempt to gain independence by the gun and the bomb, hence the "Troubles", another euphemism. Much bloodshed followed but in the 1990s, with the help of Bill Clinton and brave former soldiers and instigators on both sides of the nationalist and loyalist sides, a relative period of peace and reconciliation followed. This version of the Irish Republican Army (known as the Provisional IRA, "provos") and the loyalist/unionist terrorists on the other side put down the guns.

This is a good time to suggest watching Derry Girls on Netflix, a really funny, well-written coming of age series, to get a little education and a lot of fun and enjoyment. Tourism boomed in the following decades in the North. (If you are there, say in Belfast, take a black taxi tour and you'll be taken to sites on both sides of the conflict and to hear both sides.) But there is still tension. There are dozens of "peace walls" dividing the communities in some contentious locations. Gates close at 6 p.m. To keep the whole communities, not just the troublemakers apart. Some bridges divide the communities (such as the one in which Moglai Bop is chased by Orangemen after he steals a British baton).

So I've personally witnessed nationalists sing traditional rebels songs in loyalist areas to start trouble. Meanwhile, although many loyalists (who dress in Orange or British flag colors) parade to sincerely celebrate their culture, many troublemakers intentionally decide to parade through nationalist areas, cursing, threatening nationalists to start trouble. Loyalists also hold bonfires, some again to celebrate their culture, but some burn effigies of the Pope or burn the Irish tricolor flag to cause trouble and sow division. The corrupt Royal Ulster Constabulary has been disbanded, and replaced by "the slightly more diverse PSNI, Police Service of Northern Ireland. There are, however, dissident terrorist groups on both sides "dissies"). Dissident nationalist terrorist groups even threaten nationalist Catholics who join the PSNI! If nationalists want to gain power, by all means join the police and help make it a fair police force. I also briefly note that things are very different in the overwhelmingly Catholic (at least culturally) 26 counties. There is a small Anglo-Irish Protestant minority, but it's not like Catholics are attacking them there. Why not? It's much more of a political issue, in the North of the island, not so much a religious one anywhere on the island.

A few tips to understand the jokes: when Mo Chara has a loyalist/protestant girlfriend in the movie, note he screams a solemn nationalist battle cry "Our time will come" (pun intended) in Irish during the sex scenes. Meanwhile, she has a tattoo "Never surrender" (a loyalist battle cry) with the red hand of ulster on her back. The DUP is one of the main loyalist political groups in the North. Kneecapping was a real thing the Provisional IRA did to anyone, nationalist or loyalist, if they were caught dealing drugs. The RTE, which censored Kneecap, is an IRISH tv/radio media station, not British. Fenian is a derogatory term by the loyalists used to describe nationalists. Northern Irish nationalists football/soccer fans tend to route for the Scottish Glasgow Celtic team, which was created by Irish immigrants in Scotland, and loyalists route for the Glasgow Rangers. Stormont is the political seat of the North. The terms of the power sharing Good Friday agreement dictate that one side has the ability to effectively shut down the government, and the loyalists actually did so for a time in recent years. Thankfully, they have come back to the table. After their shows, kneecap makes appoint to say they do not hate the English or British. It's the British (Tory at the time) government they hate. Clearly, the British voters also did not like that government as the Labour Party is now in power.

The movie is great, but a lot of it is fiction. It was produced by an Englishman, and he did a fantastic job. There are some pro cross-community messages in the story, but I don't buy the female PSNI officer beating a nationalist with a billy club in the last several years. An RUC officer in the 70s-90s? Well, absolutely that's another time altogether. If you listen to rap music, you can't be the easily offended type, and you can't be surprised by drug use. In real life, you can't be successful, at least for very long, with the drug use shown in the movie. It gets 9 stars overall, and 10stars for messaging about the importance of culture and language....but 0 stars for the drug use messaging. That's not the point of the movie, however - because this is Kneecap and they unabashedly and genuinely show themselves how they are; that's part of the appeal. Kneecap members are unlikely representatives of the Irish language. Sure there's a little bit of Trainspotting and a little bit of 8 mile, but this movie is original. See it - you haven't seen THIS movie before and you won't again.