Every once in a while, a movie comes out of nowhere and punches you in the face with its raucous energy. In 2024, that movie is Kneecap. Brash, bold, and wildly entertaining, this genre-busting hybrid will have you nodding your head to the beat when you aren’t laughing at some of its very cutting humour.

Unapologetically Irish, the new film written and directed by Rich Peppiatt is a fictionalized origin story of Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap — Naoise Ó Cairealláin, Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh and JJ Ó Dochartaigh — who all play themselves in the movie.

Enjoyment of Kneecap does not hinge on knowing any of the hip-hop trio’s songs or story or even enjoyment of the musical genre. In fact, it’s best loved by not knowing anything about the Irish rap group in advance.

Set in West Belfast in 2019, Naoise and Liam Óg have a penchant for doing and selling drugs. When the police, best referred to by their slang identifier “the peelers”, pick up Liam Óg, he asserts his right to have the interrogation conducted in Irish. Awakened by a phone call in the middle of the night, music and Irish language teacher JJ is summoned to the station to help the lad out. Discovering these young “hoods” have a penchant for crass yet poetic lyrics in Irish, he convinces them to put music to their rhymes. And thus, amid a lot of drugs, Kneecap is born.

“Stories are built from language,” Liam Óg says in the film. “Nations are built from stories. This is our story.”

Now, you may be thinking rappers-turned-actors can’t possibly be good at acting, even if it is a semi-autobiographical story. But the group, better known by their stage names Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara and DJ Próvai, are here to prove you wrong. Very wrong.

I watched this movie for the first time without so much of a glance at the cast or plot, I spent the runtime wondering who these explosive Irish actors were, eager to check out more of their filmography. It was a delightful surprise to learn they are, in fact, playing themselves. While the extreme antics of lyricists Naoise and Liam Óg may come off as a bit over the top, JJ’s transformation from mild-mannered teacher to DJ Próvai provides a grounding element to the unruly frenzy. He is the adult in this situation and the one who should be the voice of reason. But, just like the audience, he finds himself pulled into the orbit of Naoise and Liam Óg and their relevant lyrics.

Though he has limited screen time, Michael Fassbender appears as Naoise’s father, Arlo — an IRA soldier who faked his death to avoid the peelers a decade prior. Now in hiding, Arlo has always been an advocate of speaking Irish. To him it’s a sign of cultural pride. He sees, like JJ, the modern use of the language as a way to keep the traditions of the past alive and encourages the next generation to not let it fall by the wayside.

Though the jokes and lyrics can be a bit crude at times, Kneecap is a work of political art and of standing up for your own convictions. According to UNESCO, Irish is spoken by only 20,000 to 40,000 people as a first language  — only about 6,000 whom reside in Northern Ireland — and it has been banned by the British in the past and was only recently recognized as an official language in the U.K. in 2022. A defining aspect of Irish culture, this Indigenous language is intrinsically tied to the Irish identity as a colonized people who have been steadfast in their defiance against British imperialism. As the screen tells us in Kneecap, Indigenous languages like Irish are lost every 40 days.

Peppiatt, who was born in London and resides in Belfast, pays homage to Trainspotting in more ways than one here — in particular through the epic drug trip scenes. Adding artistic animated flourishes to Kneecap’s lyrics and then combining them with music video-style quick cuts infuses the film with so much energy the screen can barely contain it. Like the best biopics, Kneecap is a universal story that will stand the test of time as one of the greatest movies about rap music alongside films like 8 Mile and Straight Outta Compton.

After seeing it at Sundance (where it won the Next: Audience Award), I boldly declared Kneecap one of the best movies of the year. Watching it for a second time six months later has just further proven my assertion that the film is firmly in the list of the best films of 2024. And if you happen to see Kneecap playing a concert near you, don’t hesitate to go as their infectious on-screen energy is only magnified on stage.

Kneecap opens in theatres on August 2.