The Boondock Saints

From what I have gathered about The Boondock Saints is that people either love or hate this movie... that or they've never seen it before.

The Boondock Saints takes place in Boston when a pair of brothers receive a calling from God to root out the evil and corrupt in the world. They go on a spree of vigilantism all while their crime scenes are analyzed and recreated by a flamboyant, brilliant FBI agent. (Played by Willem Defoe)

Though the main characters of the movie are the two McManus brothers, Special Agent Paul Smecker or Mr. Defoe definitely stole the show. The quirkiness and psychological roller coaster this FBI agent goes through, the recreations of how the crimes went down in his head are the highlights of the movie. Credit of course has to be given to the cinematography of the movie, but it wouldn't be that great if Willem Defoe was not the person executing the scene. Also, his character is gay. Now this was the late 90's. Homosexuality was still very strange to the American public so to see the crack detective be so obviously gay (so much to a point where he dresses up in drag to get into a mobsters house) its still kind of strange to see. But it was a stellar performance, no doubt about it.

The two brothers are played by Sean Patrick Flannery, and Norman Reedus. It took me a few seconds to realize that Daryl from the Walking Dead was one of the McManus brothers. As a Daryl fan... that's pretty cool.

The brothers are decent enough. They play well with each other and they're very matter of fact. They get a calling from God, they don't question it, they just go and do their vigilante thing. Which is something that was strange for me in this movie. And perhaps that's the point. These two are never really affected by the killing that they're doing. They're so driven by their calling and know what they're doing is "righteous" that shooting and straight out executing people is no big deal to them.

Then there's their buddy Rocco who is apart of the Italian mafia in Boston. He is set up when he's given orders to kill a group of individuals the brothers end up killing. The Italian mafia wanted to kill him so he wants revenge. This is another part of the movie that kind of bothered me.

These men are so convinced that their quest of vigilantism is the right thing to do, and yet they obviously bring on a guy who just wants to see the group of people that screwed him over pay. While the brothers are on a quest, Rocco is a goof thug who just wants to kill people and feel apart of the group.

I thought for sure that Rocco was going to start killing people on his own and the brothers would have to make a choice, do they kill their friend, a man who has turned into the very thing they set out to destroy? Or do they compromise their quest and let him live?

I don't know, I'm probably missing the point of the movie.

And then there's this guy.

Il Duce (played by Billy Connolly) is a Hitman contracted by the mafia to take out members they don't like anymore. His whole story is shrouded in a lot of mystery especially since he is not give a "christian name" when he's in prison.

But they never really explain how they get him out of prison. And [SPOILERS] he ends up being the McManus brothers father... out of freaking no where.

There's an iconic scene where the brothers and Rocco are walking out of house where they have just killed someone. Suddenly Il Duce is waiting for them and there's an epic gunfight.

But then later, he comes in and kills a bunch of mafia members... why? I don't know... Didn't they hire him?

Anyway, once he's done killing mafia members... but not Willem Defoe...??? He shows up behind the brothers and then what do you know, he not only recognizes them... but he's their father too... Yeah... doesn't make any sense at all.

By the way, here's the shootout scene, and a great representation of why Willem Defoe is a badass

The cinematography in this movie is really fantastic. Putting Willem Defoe in the crime scene was fantastically done. Going in and out of the crimes themselves and Defore deducting them, brilliant. The random fades to black, different but I liked them. 

I think what bothered me about this was the blatant glorification of vigilantism. It doesn't show the inefficiencies of the justice system or the moral dilemma with these brothers that would lead them to vigilantism, it just shows them doing it accidentally, getting praised for it and saying, "well that was cool, let's do it again."

 There's an interesting scene when the credits start rolling with the media interviewing people and asking them what they think of the vigilantes known as the Saints. 

The answers differ from, "Who gives them the right to do it?" To "The more motherfuckers they kill the better"

If the movie was trying to pose a moral question of vigilantism, it needed to do a better job at it. There's a part in the movie where Willem Defoe knows that the brothers are the ones killing all these mafia members. He has a moral dilemma on whether or not he should bring them in or help them in their quest. He ends up helping them and it leads to this scene.

You can see Willem Defoe's face as they execute the Don of the Mafia. Is this Defoe regretting he helped them? I don't know. That's the last scene we see of Defoe. If the movie was trying to pose that kind of question, they spent more time on the violent murders then they did creating dilemmas of characters, whether its Defoe, the brothers, anybody. The internal conflicts were so insignificant that it almost seemed like they didn't exist. 

Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie a 20% rating. But while critics gave that movie 20%, audiences gave it a 90%. That is a disparity that is unheard of. The movie apparently has a huge cult following and there's a sequel... haven't seen it. I'm not really sure that I want to. 

This movie although entertaining, has a strange lesson its trying to push in a very strange way. The gunfights are fun, violent which is not a bad thing in my book. I just feel like this movie was trying to be more than just a violent action movie. And it failed at it. I wouldn't go as low as the 20% rating but I wouldn't go far from it. 

What do you think? Are you one of the Boondock Saints cult followers? If so, explain to me why this is such a brilliant movie. I don't see it. I'm not saying its bad, I just don't get the cult following. As always comment below and let me know what you think.