Anyone can find music, but making that music is a matter of a lot of things, including, obviously, luck. Rich Peppiatt’s film Kneecap is a singular semi-autobiographical account of the titular Northern Irish rap group. Google can’t verify if any of the events here are real but we have no choice but to trust this film. Here, JJ Ó Dochartaigh (DJ Próvai), a teacher, is frustrated because he can’t make Irish Gaelic relevant to his students. His second job as a legal interpreter, though, gets him access to a notebook from two musicians who write rap style verses… in Irish.

Those other two members comprising Kneecap are rappers Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (Mo Chara) and Naoise Ó Cairealláin (Móglaí Bap). JJ gives them beats although he flakes out on Liam and Naoise, the music clashing with his day jobs. The group formed during 2016 but they’re getting attention from IRA offshoots, the Radical Republicans who hate that they rap about drug use. These groups, whose members include Naoise’s father Arlo (Michael Fassbender), blow up the group’s storage studio, destroying their earlier records. Will these hurdles tear the rappers apart or will they make them stronger so they can perform for fans?

I’m making the film more serious than it actually is, which it can be, but there’s levity too. It gets this levity even in a movie with two villains – the Republicans and an Anglo-Irish cop, Detective Ellis (Josie Walker). Kneecap mostly gets its humour from the rap groups hijinks, always not knowing what kind of trouble they’re getting into. Crass proletarian men in their 20s make for easy humour but they also make for effective humour as well. It also gets its humour from the more adult characters, especially the Republicans who take things too seriously.

As I wrote above, the trio get flack from both the British cops as well as the Republicans. As Kneecap shows the musicians getting it from both sides, the film escalates tensions within the group, maybe overtly. The whole ‘the band breaks apart but gets together’ is, in fairness, something we see in films like this. Also, it’s easy to tell JJ apart from the trio, making it harder for Liam and Naoise to stand out. Another nitpick is that Naoise’s conflict with Arlo feels more substantial than Liam’s romantic dalliance with Ellis’s rebellious daughter Georgia (Jessica Reynolds). This is true even if Lian serves as the film’s narrator.

For worse but mostly for better, rap musicals are still musicals, Kneecap building its foundation with its musical performances. The film already has tons of energy between those set pieces and it keeps that momentum everytime Kneecap raps. It also helps that DJ Provai, Mo Chara, and Moglai Bap play versions both off the stage and on. They start out in beer halls and end up playing in big arenas, there’s a lot of good movement within said scenes. These scenes also show that they can innovate within their genre and keep their Indigenous language alive and bopping.

Watch Kneecap in select Canadian theatres.