The Boondock Saints, 1999.
Directed by Troy Duffy.
Starring Willem Dafoe, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, David Della Rocco, Billy Connolly, and Dot-Marie Jones.
SYNOPSIS:
A pair of Catholic brothers turn vigilante and go on the rampage in Boston’s criminal underworld.
With a production history as troubled as some of the characters in the movie, Troy Duffy’s The Boondock Saints hits Blu-ray thanks to Arrow Video and immediately takes us back to a post-Tarantino 1990s where linear storytelling was out and exaggerated bloodshed and violence was in, with quirky characters played by established actors and stylised dialogue a necessity. Oh yes, after Pulp Fiction redefined – or rather, reshaped – the crime thriller into pop art for a new generation looking for their own iconic images and quotable soundbites the movie world was suddenly full of filmmakers trying their hand at creating something cool that would catch on in the lexicon of film culture.
Which leads us to this movie, where Irish-American brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery – Saw 3D: The Final Chapter) and Murphy (Norman Reedus – The Walking Dead) MacManus find themselves in police custody after the bodies of three Russian Mafia enforcers are found in an alley in downtown Boston. The brothers are not charged as it was self-defence but detective Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe – Platoon) keeps them in the cells for the night to avoid the waiting press who are claiming the MacManus’ to be heroes, and it is here that the devout Catholic boys have an epiphany and decide that God wants them to rid the city of bad men. Upon their release they – with a bit of help from hapless Italian mob runner Rocco (David Della Rocco – Jake’s Corner) – set about ridding Boston of its Russian and Italian crime syndicates as Smecker tries to catch up, unaware that it is the MacManus brothers doing all the killing.
Sounds like the kind of setup that Tarantino could have come up with in his sleep during the ‘90s and no doubt had he written it then we might have gotten the relentlessly violent bloodbath that is promised but for some reason The Boondock Saints seems to have trouble getting going and, once it does, keeping any sense of momentum going. The MacManus brothers are fairly likeable yet one-dimensional characters who exchange playful insults with each other in a very self-referential way – as did Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels the year before – but there is no real charm here, nothing to engage you with the two brothers who just seem to be young men who happen to be handy with weapons and don’t have many worries about using them. The best character of them all is Willem Dafoe’s Paul Smecker, a flamboyantly arrogant detective who can read a crime scene like no one else and uses classical music to put him into a trance-like state to figure it all out. Trouble is, Smecker is always one step behind the MacManus brothers but seeing his dogged determination as he closes in on them makes him the one character you can fully get behind, despite the fact you’re not sure if you’re supposed to.
This is because the writing gets very muddled as the film settles into its second act, which is basically a game of cat-and-mouse between Smecker and the MacManus’ as several side characters are introduced, including Billy Connolly (Fido) as an assassin with a rather neat bulletproof vest, but there is a distinct lack of energy and coherence to the script, making it very difficult to pay much attention when Willem Dafoe isn’t camping things up or nobody is getting shot. As we already know that the MacManus’ are the culprits of all the bloodshed there is little tension in any of it, the only interesting bits being when Smecker talks through his theories of what has happened after the event and then, in true Tarantino style, we get a flashback to show us how it all went down. Trouble is, this happens several times and gets repetitive very quickly, only being broken in the final act when Dafoe gets to dress up as a woman (not a spoiler – it is very obvious who it is) and infiltrate the Italian gangs hideout, but again – are we rooting for him, the MacManus’ or the mobsters?
Looking very clean but also quite unremarkable, The Boondock Saints has a thumping rock soundtrack to help keep adrenaline levels up during the shootouts – and the shootouts are very well staged, it must be said – although there is a dramatic difference in the sound level between the music and the dialogue that may have you adjusting the volume fairly frequently, and the only extra features come in the form of deleted scenes and outtakes, although there are audio commentaries from Troy Duffy and Billy Connolly, which is odd as he is only in the film for a few minutes. Overall, The Boondock Saints has a solid cast, some cool action shots and a great score but it is largely forgettable and, thanks to some messy writing that doesn’t really give the plot any real direction or the audience any reason to care, it is only really worth watching for a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek performance from Willem Dafoe but if that is what you are after there are better movies than this to sit through to see the man chewing up scenery like it was gum.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
