Review: The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
Filed under: Action, Comedy, Independent, New Releases, New in Theaters, Remakes and Sequels
The original Boondock Saints was relegated to video store shelves before most would-be fans had an inkling it had passed them by in theaters. But eventually, chances are one night a friend would suggest watching this weird, violent movie about hot twin brothers with a serious gun fetish, Catholic complex, and Latin tattoos, and you'd pass the word along. Basically, Murphy MacManus (Norman Reedus) and Connor MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery) were blue-collar Irish guys who decided that they'd had enough of the scum on the streets and began wiping them out in various creative ways, although their favorite weapons were and remain the gun. Their buddy Rocco, a mob errand boy, was the de facto third Saint. Meanwhile, they're being tracked by a very odd FBI agent by the name of Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe in a fabulously bizarre performance) and three bumbling local cops. And then there's Il Duce (Billy Connolly), the infamous assassin who's finally paroled from prison.
Ten years later, the Saints are in Ireland with Il Duce, aka their dad, when the word comes that someone in Boston killed a priest they knew and tried to make it look like the Saints did it. Game on. The boys shed their woolly sweaters and their long hair and beards and return to Boston.
They pick up a new Saint on the way, Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.), a Hispanic guy hooked into the Mexican mob in Boston. The new FBI agent on the case is Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), a slick and smart Southern woman who wears high heels to murder scenes and wears her gun holster like an expensive belt. The Boondock Saints II offers more guns, more un-PC jokes ("A real man never says he'll just put the tip in and then just puts the tip in!"), and more mobsters – basically, just more of everything. Even Duffy admitted, "We definitely poured on the cheese factor sometimes with the story, and frankly a lot of the characters, we pushed that humor a little bit farther than we did last time."
Unfortunately, the cheese drowns out what was so attractive about the Saints and their quest the first time around. The original was a dark comedy – remember the cat? – and the brothers were obviously quite happy to drink a lot, get into bar fights, and generally act like bad boys, but they never would have said, "Let's do some gratuitous violence," like Murphy (Reedus) does as the brothers head towards another showdown in Boondock Saints II.
Smecker was totally over-the-top batsh*t awesome, and trying to bring in another character that's flatter than flat to replace him doesn't work. It takes quite a while for Bloom to get into her groove, but by then it's too late to really care about her. The dialogue is weaker, the characters are sillier, the plot is thinner, and even the mobsters are dumber. (And let's not even discuss either Judd Nelson as the mob boss with a panic room or the priest-killer with a height complex.)
Overall, as a Boondock Saints fan (not an uberfan with Boondock clothing or tattoos, mind you), I was disappointed by the sequel, even though it's not that bad. It's just not that good, either.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2009 @ 11:22AM
Dan L said...
I agree that yeah, they doubled down on the cheesiness and not always to great effect. But I personally thought the dwarf assassin was funny. I thought Judd Nelson sucked. I thought there was some hysterically funny lines. I thought Bloom was pretty useless.
But I think overall, it was more good than bad, and the tongue in the cheek is because it is for the fans and not for the mainstream appeal. And if you talk about the first one, you're quoting the humor. So yeah, the gun scenes were good, but they seemed to be amping up what they thought we wanted.
More than anything else, the 'rope' line was the most shoe-horned in and not-actually-funny tip of the hat to the first film. Unless you can count the entirety of Gorgeous George's character, intended I guess as a parallel to Ron Jeremy's in the first in a lot of respects. The 'panic room' exchange with Joejoe(?) was decent, but otherwise a wholly unfunny character. And why use the name Gorgeous George just to immediately make me think of a better movie, Snatch?
I honestly had more of a problem with the camera work, and the fact that he seemed compelled to shoot it like a TV show half the time. So cropped in on faces and stuff. Unfortunate decision considering, you know....the overall lack of graceful aging with some of these folks...
But yeah, I liked it. A lot more than I was expecting to.
Not a waste of time - especially as a midnight premiere on Tremont Street with a bunch of diehard fans.
First time it said "Boston" on screen. Madness.
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10-30-2009 @ 1:38PM
Thomas said...
IM pissed i wish they would have released in my state.
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10-31-2009 @ 3:35AM
Chuck said...
You people are nuts. I just got back from seeing this movie and it is amazing! I was laughing and then boom the action kicks in. This movie has only been released on 65 screens nationwide, which is ridiculus. This movie was 10 years in the making and it was well worth the wait. I cannot wait to see this movie again. This movie needs to make money so we can see Boondock Saints III!!! Go out and see this movie, and if its not in your area, call your theaters non stop until they put it in there. Demand, demand, demand, that what you need to do. We can get this movie the respect it diserves.
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10-31-2009 @ 4:36AM
Ben said...
I think you're absolutely right on with this review, Jenni.
This movie was essentially a carbon copy of the first film, but not nearly as good (if that makes any sense). The plot made no sense (why did the brothers go to Mexico before they went to Boston - from IRELAND? It's not like Mexico is on their way), and every aspect - production, editing, acting, and writing - felt forced.
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11-01-2009 @ 10:26AM
ElevatorHappyFun said...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhk-J9YwLR8
thats what happens if you clone something too much...
11-02-2009 @ 8:48AM
Edward said...
The first time I saw the first Boondock Saints I had no preconceived idea what the movie was about. My wife and I instantly made it on of our top five favorite movies. We have watched it every year as our Saint Patrick Day ritual celebration and after several years of this tradition, it still remains in our top five favorite. We have not seen the sequel movie and we are very much looking forward to seeing it. With that said I have a problem with everyone damning the movie on littlest detail. People have a problem with…
*…the actors looking older (well look in the mirror, after 10 years do you look better?). If this was the first movie would you have a problem with how they look?
*…the plot not being not up to snuff. The plot for the original movie did not develop until half way through.
*…the cheese factor. One of the reasons we like the original was the ‘fun-ness’. We wanted more. Now that we were given more, people are starting to complain. Stop being fickled.
Look at it this way, if this was the first movie and you saw it for the first time, what would you have thought of it? And if you can use your imagination further, if you then saw the original (the one we all love) as the sequel how many ways could you have torn it apart? After all if we start picking a movie apart, then in the original, how can a man jump off a building that is at least 6 stories (the apartment was leaking into the 4th floor so it had to come from the 5th floor – which means IF the 5th floor was the top floor and Connor was on the roof – that made it essentially 6 floors) and end up with only a really bad limp? (Landing on another human will not cushion that kinda fall). OR two guys up side down swinging and turning from a rope can shoot and kill 9 people in a room with pin point accuracy with minimum rounds used, but then stationary three men on a solid platform cannot one man standing in the street with empty clips flying.
Mr. Duff wrote this movie for us – the fans. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Just enjoy it!
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1-09-2010 @ 1:58PM
Shayna said...
Boondock Saints is one of my all time favorite movies, and I believe the sequel completely lives up to the hype. I would consider myself a true fan of The Boondock Saints and the sequel is exactly what I wanted to see. It took everything that was great from the original and amped it up. I thought the movie got progressively better and was totally bad ass. I left the theatre much happier than I was expecting to, and could not stop talking about it for the rest of the night. I cannot wait till it comes out on DVD so I can watch one right after the other.
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