Inadvertently, I visited “Kneecap” without even a whiff of its content. I do not care, another whiff, for rap! If it’s generational, I missed it by decades and did not mourn its loss. So, sitting with an audience of prepubescent attendees, I found myself laughing, with requited glee, bouncing in my seat to its iconoclastic rhythm, lyrics and high-fiving its message.
Real characters portraying themselves defending their indigenous tongue, “Irish” and right to communicate, doffing traditional English; collaborating with their Belfast teacher, stoned on drugs, their rapper band explodes and “Kneecap’’ electrifies; coined for the maiming of dissidents shot in the legs by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. Brothers, Mogali Or Naoise, Mo Chera directed by Rich Peppiatt, joined by masked D J Proval ignite, inspire audiences to rebel, to claim the integrity of survival and respect for their native language. Michael Fassbender, Arlo, is the renegade father of the boys.
Shocking is the destructive demise of dialects worldwide; United States out of 2000, approximately 115 alive today. Interesting, Hebrew from ancient to contemporary is the “main medium of life in Israel.”
Exiting, kneecaps intact, jauntily rapping, mentally applauding the serendipity of fate, blessing, indulging me in this innovative treasure of ingenuity and the potential of the few, to overcome the mighty.
FOUR STARS!!!!
Peneflix