Goal: Incorporate the insult, "he's not a full shilling" into regular speech.

This film was another member of the True/False lineup. Gotta say I was cringing from the start and that feeling didn't let up until the credits rolled. My biggest problem with it, though, was the quality of the filming, which often was extremely reflective of the director's videography roots. Most of it looks like a series of strung together home movies, but not in any kind of spectacularly inventive or authentic way.

KNUCKLE is a lightweight among True/False contenders

Film: KNUCKLE (2011)

[Documentary]

Never was the term “Fighting Irish” more appropriate than in Ian Palmer’s KNUCKLE, a tale of puts bloody faces to the names Quinn McDonagh and Joyce.

The two are members of Ireland’s Travelers, a small nomadic population often poor, illiterate and fiercely prideful. Their lives are consumed by a never-ending family feud in which cousins, uncles and brothers pummel each other for money and recognition.

For as barbaric as the bare-fisted scrapes can look, there is order in the chaos. “Fair fights” are arranged after one clan instigates with a video threat or smack talk. A time and place are set, and referees hired. Then all that’s left is 20 minutes of “noses and mouth broken in and 15 to 16 stitches” worth of damage.

Watching this film is like being subject to an experiment in systematic desensitization. In the first feud, between James “The Mighty Quinn” McDonagh and Paddy Joyce, audible hisses cut through the theatre with each landed punch. The audience can only pull quick bursts of air through gritted teeth as the sickening soft thuds of skin on skin and token spatters of blood assault the senses.

This is nothing like a greased up Brad Pitt in Fight Club (1999) who manages to look good with half his teeth knocked out. This is hairy, flabby, sweaty men and boys who don’t come to the fight looking for one-time catharsis, but rather the continuation of a decades-old dispute. The images are gritty and the fighters’ techniques scrappy. It is rough-and-tumble — and they do tumble, often — and each brawl is more pathetic than the last.

At one point, Big Joe Joyce, the oldest and most revered fighter of the Joyce clan, comes out of retirement to fight. His style is to “leave [his opponent’s] face like a butcher’s block.” Palmer narrates with a resigned tone that as he watches two grandfathers beat each other up, he’s had enough.

His admission sounds a lot like James’ many empty promises of final fights. In the end, neither director nor subject can quit.

The film is full of ironies. From the images of Catholicism, such as a large portrait of Pope John Paul II, that hang on nearly every wall, to the fact that the Traveler tradition of intermarrying forces generations to switch sides, the nonsense of it all is plain to see. The families aren’t oblivious to the foolish nature of the “tradition,” but to them, hoping for resolution is even more inane.

Whether Palmer’s characterizations or the pure 97 minutes of violence are the cause, it’s disturbing that by the end of the film, the audience is audibly more stoic and you can find yourself rooting for one of the Quinn men in the film’s last fight. No matter the influence, one thing is certain: the experiment was a success.