Boondock Saints (1999) Review

Nearly everyone I've spoken to about this film says things such as "It's incredible" and "You'll love it!" and the like. What I got upon viewing is a film that I didn't love nor hate, in the strictest sense.

Fraternal twins Connor and Murphy Mcmanus (Sean Patrick Flannery, Norman Reedus) are two Irish-born Catholics who live and work in Boston. After they kill two Russian thugs in self-defense and being released as heroes they decide that it is their mission from God to rid the world of evil men. Risking their lives for their beliefs of Veritas (truth) and Aequitas (justice), the Boondock Saints are hyped by the public, for they are doing good, which only few dare to admit. Even FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe), who is assigned to follow their trail of bloodshed, admits that what Connor and Murphy are doing is what he has always wanted to happen. The boys are joined by their friend and former mob "package boy" David "The Funnyman" Della Rocco (David Della Rocco) as they slowly work their way through the underworld killing men they judge to be evil. No vigilante story can be complete without the bad guys hiring a perfect killer who's only known in the film as Il Duce (Billy Connolly).

Possibly the only good things in the film are the strong performances by Dafoe and Connolly who both manage to make the most of their limited screen time. By contrast Flannery and Reedus stay oddly wooden in their readings.

The film itself seems more interested in finding interesting or original ways to stage the executions of the villains instead of presenting the internal choices made by the main characters to choose vigilantism. Sloppy editing of action sequences leave me wanting more. I've been told that the original cut received an NC-17 rating after the Columbine massacre but the chaotic editing to gain an R makes you realize that all the other aspects of the film are just as poor. That feeling runs from the direction by Troy Duffy to the Tarantino-wannabe dialogue (also by Duffy) to the hammed up role of Rocco. All the way up until we get to the miscasting of Ron Jeremy as a mafia underboss.

Who knows? Maybe I really did hate it.

★1/2