Prime Video has just added one of 2024’s best movies

The Oscar contender holds a 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.

The Sundance award-winning film is a biopic about the much-discussed, Belfast-based hip-hop trio of the same name in which the bandmates play themselves.

It details how they came together to not only become the first major Irish language rap group, but also unconventional activists for Irish language rights in Northern Ireland.

There’s a twist though, however. The movie has been described as a “semi-fictionalised” take on the trio’s origin story. This is because writer-director Rich Peppiatt (making his dramatic feature debut) weaves the group’s formation into a multi-faceted tale that may not be true to real-life but is true to the spirit of Kneecap’s anarchic and political music. 

Kicking off with a kinetic opening recalling Danny Boyle classic Trainspotting, we learn about Liam Óg ‘Mo Chara’ Ó Hannaidh and Naoise ‘Móglaí Bap’ Ó Cairealláin. They are two young men from Catholic backgrounds living in Belfast in 2019 who can’t stay out of trouble - committing petty crimes, sometimes as a form of protest against the British government and sometimes out of boredom. 

Looming over them is the spectre of Móglaí Bap’s father Arlo (Michael Fassbender), an IRA man laying low after faking his death. He taught the young boys Irish and about being socially conscious. “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet for Irish freedom,” he constantly tells them.

When Mo Chara winds up getting picked up by the PSNI, he will only speak to the officers interrogating him in Irish - forcing the cops to track down local music teacher JJ Ó Dochartaigh to serve as a translator as Gaeilge. Catching a glimpse of Mo Chara’s notebook filled with Irish spoken word musings, JJ later approaches him and Móglaí Bap about putting the poetry to his beats. The trio soon begin performing together, with JJ hiding his identity - his school wouldn’t like him associated with Kneecap’s controversial, confrontational lyrics after all - by wearing a tricolour balaclava and calling himself DJ Próvaí.

As Kneecap try to make it seriously as artists and start piercing through to the mainstream, they run afoul of people on all sides: an overzealous PSNI detective (Josie Walker) with a personal grudge against the band; the Irish paramilitary group Radical Republicans Against Drugs that take issue with the group’s lyrics about narcotics; radio censors with the same issue; and other activists for the Irish language - including DJ Próvaí’s girlfriend Caitlin (Fionnuala Flaherty) - who believe the trio to be irresponsible figureheads for the movement.

If that sounds overly complex or too artsy, we can assure you the end project is anything but.

Boasting fast-paced and thrilling direction, a wickedly clever and funny script that mixes the personal with the political, and terrific acting from both Kneecap and the supporting cast, it's no surprise the movie has been chosen as Ireland’s official submission for next year’s Oscars.

How to Watch

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If you missed the film - which holds a whopping 96% on Rotten Tomatoes - when it landed in cinemas in August of this year, you have another chance to watch it via Prime Video in Ireland and the UK right now.

You can read JOE's rave review for Kneecap in full right here.

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