Film Reviews

Knuckle

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring:
• Details: Ireland / 85mins (15A).

Shot over twelve years, this bruising documentary follows traveller James Quinn-McDonagh and his quest to be not only to be the King of the Travellers in bare-knuckle boxing but also to peacefully settle a family feud that has raged for generations. Peacefully settle it with his fists that is.
After shooting James' brother's wedding in 1997, director Ian Palmer was asked by James if he'd like to document his upcoming bout with a member of the Joyce family, with whom his family has had tensions with. What follows is Palmer's journey into this world and the story behind these two families. Converging in England in the eighties, both sets of families were friends until an 'incident' in 1992 changed all that (it took Palmer ten years to tease the story out of James). Since then, the unbeaten James has attempted, so he says, to placate the tensions between the families…
Knuckle is a marvellous insight into this illegal world and its rules and regulations. There is no holding, biting, kicking or head-butting but anything goes after that (except bad language for some reason). Family members and supporters are banned from accompanying the fighters to the bouts, usually held in country lanes, as fears that the fight will spread to the sidelines are very real. Referees too must be neutral, taken from families unconnected to the feud. The amount of money – sometimes reaching €120,000 – is enormous. With bloody noses and broken teeth the norm in this alpha male-dominated culture, Palmer finds humour too: the challenger sends video tapes, WWF style, to taunt his opponent into a fight and the much-needed subtitles often 'correct' the language of the participants.
Knucle isn't perfect, though. There is a desire for Palmer to delve into the hypocrisy of the women who protest that they do not approve of the fighting but don't object to the cash that comes rolling in. Another mother states that she is proud of her husband but adds that her son will never be pushed into fighting. Palmer, however, stays out of that business and sticks rigidly to his observational style. He's not here to question or to judge. To his credit, the director, who narrates here, questions his own motives for shooting this documentary because at times, he admits, he was there just for the thrill of the fight.

Review by Gavin Burke