Kneecap

It wants so hard to be the next "Trainspotting," with a heavy dollop of Irish pride tossed in. But this oddball celebration of drugs, hip-hop and Gaeilge fails to link up its disparate themes.

“Kneecap” wants soooo much to be the next “Trainspotting” — a gleeful celebration of drugs and youthful brutishness, but with a heavy dollop of Irish pride centered around the Gaeilge language. Instead it’s just an oddball, off-putting flick that makes it very hard to engage with its characters and disparate themes.

Here the young protagonists are not just drug addicts and dealers, but also aspiring hip-hop artists. If the Scottish lads in “Trainspotting” had a certain rakish tragedy that made them compelling, here the two Irish leads are insouciant thugs with little charisma or redeeming value.

Let’s also be upfront: most of the movie is in traditional Irish, but even the English parts are burdened by such heavy accents that the lack of subtitles makes it extremely challenging to follow the dialogue.

Plus, the copious use of regional slang and political references aren’t exactly friendly to Yank audiences, either. I quickly grasped that “peelers” is the equivalent of calling police pigs, but the various factions of republicans are pretty mysterious to most Americans who don’t follow Irish news, which is to say most of us (me included).

My experience of watching this movie was being confused about what is being said at least 40% of the time, followed by not caring about these characters about half the time, with about 10% left over that I found interesting/engaging.

Furthering confusion, the story — screenplay by Rich Peppiatt, who also directed — is a fictionalized version of the real hip-hop band Kneecap, with members Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin and JJ Ó Dochartaigh playing themselves. Onstage they go by the names Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, respectively.

(That screeching sound you may be hearing is your spellcheck imploding.)

I’m reminded of Roger Ebert’s reference to Snoop Dogg in his first film role as ‘a tall skinny rapper who can’t act,’ or something like that. Liam and Naoise are short and chunky with terrible haircuts, and they also can’t act. Liam has a resting churl face, like an altar boy gone to seed, that just makes you want to punch him. Naoise seemingly has no facial expression at all.

They play chums since childhood, who actually were altar boys, and they most definitely went to seed with their enthusiastic embrace of the drug life, both as users and dealers, especially MDMA.

JJ is the only interesting one of the trio, an older married guy who actually works in the schools as a music teacher. He gets roped in when Liam is arrested by the police and refuses to speak English, so JJ is tapped as an Irish interpreter. He quickly identifies with the youngster and helps him beat the rap.

To protect his identity, JJ wears an Irish flag-colored knit mask over his face during performances that makes him look like Dumb Donald from the old “Fat Albert” show. JJ actually shows some genuine thespian skills and has an interesting story arc, from staid sellout to stage rebel.

“No one is anyone until they are,” he tells is wife (Fionnula Flaherty) as she becomes involved in the political movement for recognition of the Irish language — though he could also be talking about himself.

Naoise is just a lump on the screen. His bit of the narrative is more about his father, Arlo, a rebellious republican who faked his death years ago and is played by Michael Fassbender in an undersized role I detect was invented for this movie. “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom,” Arlo tells the boys when they’re wee.

Simone Kirby plays his mother, a recluse living with rage at having been abandoned for the cause.

Jessica Reynolds plays Liam’s sorta-girlfriend Georgia, a fiery lass who enjoys emotionally and physically abusing him, but it’s supposed to be cute because she’s cute. Josie Walker portrays the grim detective who’s been on Arlo’s trail for years, determined to prove he’s still alive, and so has an ingrained grudge against Naoise and a newer, assumed one against Liam, for reasons we’ll see.

The Brits largely play the heavies, of course, though there’s also a splinter group calling themselves Radical Republicans Against Drugs dogging the boys, who might be receptive to Kneecap’s appeal to Irish pride if not for their tendency to pass out drugs to the audience at their concerts.

At first hole-in-the-wall performances in neighborhood pubs, the boys quickly move up the chain of fame, garnering bigger gigs and even media attention for their lewd, crude ways. Young people identify with their embrace of their native tongue and figurative middle finger to the Brits.

One of the gifts of movies is introducing us to people very different from ourselves, possibly even strange or offensive, and generating empathy for their lives and identities. You may not agree with the characters but you at least come to understand why they are they way they are.

I found little empathy for Kneecap, except maybe for JJ since he’s closer to me in age and situation. I admit I found troublesome the band and film’s unalloyed, enthusiastic embrace of hard drugs and the thug life. I kept waiting for the moment when the trio realizes their message is more important than their lifestyle, but it never arrives.

“Kneecap” seems to revel in that chasm between the audience, and never so much as attempts to throw a rope across.