Movies Reviews

Knuckle – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Dec 16, 2011, 22:17 GMT

An epic 12-year journey into the brutal and secretive world of Irish Traveler bare-knuckle fighting. This film follows a history of violent feuding between rival clans. ...more

A time machine of ancient tradition spotlighting bloody and violent bare-knuckle fighting that is as much legend as reality. Fascinating from start to finish.

Ian Palmer’s “Knuckle” is one of the most unique documentaries to come out this year. He spent some 15 years following the secretive and brutal bare-knuckle fights of the Irish “Travelers.” These fights are against the law, against common sense, decency, sportsmanship and everything else society stands for.

Yet, they have been a steadfast tradition with the Travelers since time immemorial. They are a way of defining a clan’s status as well as its identity.

The most important piece of background to have going into this remarkable, and shocking, film, is the makeup of the Irish Traveler. Travelers are ethnic Irish who adopted a nomadic lifestyle over the past five to ten centuries. Their history is entirely verbal; they have virtually no written records, so it is difficult to document their origins. Most are found in the UK and USA, and most of the fights recorded in this film happen in the midlands of the UK.

They are also known as Gypsies, although they are not to be confused with the better-known Romanian gypsies. Over the years, the Travelers have also picked up the nickname of “tinkers” for their traditional work of fashioning and repairing sheet metal articles such as pots, pans and cars.

The stars of the show are elders James Quinn McDonagh and Paddy “The Lurcher” Joyce. As the senior spokesman of the clans these two are the most responsible for issuing the screaming, ranting challenges and the equally furious retorts. In the end they actually end up fighting, in a sequence that the filmmaker reports went viral on U-tube. It is a sight to behold.

Grandfathers behaving very, very badly. On the other hand, how many of us will have that much fun when we are that old?

Part of the legend surrounding the Travelers stems from the Irish Catholic feud, Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland and the famine of the 1840’s. These events have leant a brutal aspect to the lives of the latter day Celtics, giving rise to the universal concept of “the fighting Irish.”

Perhaps it was the tribe’s rejection of law and order and its rejection of a society that seemed bent of killing it in the 1800’s, that led to the deep seated and outrageous violent behavior shown in this film.

First, a warning. Bare knuckle fist fighting may be the most violent sport in the modern day world. Blood is drawn in the first minutes of the fight and the fights have been known to continue for four hours or more. At the end of one fight in this film, the loser’s face is indistinguishable through the matted blood and broken skin.

Most fighters, winners and losers, leave the fight with broken hands that may never heal correctly. They live with these deformities to defend the honor their clans and the place of their clans in the constantly shifting and reeling world of the nomadic Travelers.

When male babies are born, the babies are presented to the world as the future fighters who will do as their fathers did. They will bellow, insult, bully and curse the other clans of the tribe until their young men agree to meet in secret.

There, with only referees, seconds and cameramen (the videos become prized family heirlooms, records of heroism) they beat each other senseless. This mutual show of strength is accepted to be their only workable determinant of a social pecking order.

By the way, these clans are related. For the most art they are cousins, in some cases even brothers, who have become slightly separated through marriage. It is not uncommon to see mutual challengers cursing a man, his family and forebears when the two belligerents, in fact, have the same families and forebears.

There is something that is so ancient, so pre-historic, so animal, about this procedure that one cannot help but be repulsed and fascinated at the same time.

It is ugly and brutal but it resonates inside us all. This is the ancient rite of the survival of the fittest. What is so astounding is that it still exists today. The Travelers represent a society that has so isolated itself from society in general that even such profoundly anachronistic behavior has survived. It may not survive for long.

Their society is very secretive and very male oriented. The men say everything and the women say nothing. This is an interesting parallel to Anabaptist societies in the USA such as the Mennonites and the Amish.

There are a couple of interviews with women; however, it appears the women run away from strangers whenever possible. At the end of the film, the women are the first, and strongest, critics of the fighting tradition. They say it has to go, and, by the end of the film, the men begin to agree.

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Documentary
Directed by: Ian Palmer
Featuring: James Quinn McDonagh and Paddy “The Lurcher” Joyce
Release Date: December 9, 2011
MPAA: “R” by the MPAA
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color