James Quinn McDonagh in KNUCKLE (Gary Ashe/Arc Entertainment)

Shot, Produced & Directed by Ian Palmer
Released by Arc Entertainment
Ireland. 97 min. Rated R

From the poster for Knuckle, one might get the impression that this is another underdog drama like The Fighter or Warrior. Not so. This is a documentary and is not about underdogs, per se. It’s about blue-collar Irish folk who live in the rural parts of Ireland who usually don’t stay in one place too long. (Think Brad Pitt from Snatch, only not quite that over the top, though pretty darn close.) These rival family-clans fight each other in the spot of bare-knuckle boxing. A lot.

Irish director Ian Palmer follows a feud going back to the early 1990s involving the Quinn McDonaghs and Joyces (there are other clans too, but these are the major ones). Around circa 1997/1998 (which is when Palmer started filming), James Quinn McDonagh is more than a little tired of the bare-knuckle matches, which take months of training and can sometimes be over in a few minutes. But there’s always money riding on it—tens of thousands for the big matches, covered by the two opposing clans fighting—and there’s always that pride factor as well. At the end of the first match, James says “That’s the last one, never fighting again.” We see him later in the film, after years have gone by, and he’s about to fight again. Asked about his earlier declaration, he replies curtly (but with a smile), “I lied.”

The feud between goes back to 1992 when a shooting left one of the Joyce clan dead, even though many are related to one another (which is more than suggested in scenes from a wedding between cousins). The fighting goes on throughout the years in large part to taunting video challenges sent from one clan to the other. Most imposing of these is the patriarch Paddy Joyce, a walrus of a man, who is so blustery and antagonizing in his videos that he’s probably kept away from small children so as not to scar them for life.

Palmer reveals a closed-off society and a cycle of violence that can’t be stopped, at least not too easily. To be clear, these bare-knuckle brawls, which stretch out multiple fights over a day’s time, are quite illegal and take place in secluded spots along country roads (though that doesn’t stop a police helicopter intruding on the proceedings). There’s just too much history, too much bad blood, and frankly too much at stake in the minds of the fighters for it to stop, despite the wives and mothers in the clans always shaking their heads and bemoaning the violence.

One fighter, Michael McDonagh, is seen in a fight early on where he loses, badly. He’s not a very big guy and about eight or nine years go by and he has become a man so unlike himself earlier in the film—a hulking, tattooed creature, who looks more like he stepped out of a UFC meet. The transformation is kind of staggering.

Knuckle is definitely a niche sort of documentary. Even as I was prepared for some brutality I wasn’t ready for just how raw these fights could get and how people communicate in this world (thankfully, there are subtitles, despite the fact that they all speak English). Shot on camcorders, it’s a technically rough but personally moving look at family rivalry, and it cuts into the awfulness of the fighting to the point that even Palmer can’t stand to film it anymore. I don’t blame him, yet for sticking with it for 12 years, he demands respect.