The Boondock Saints is so incredibly bad, I eventually embraced it with a sick fascination, watching as it ripped off so many of my favorite movies ("Oh, I remember that form that Tarantino, Rodriguez, Woo, Ritchie, Stone, Scorcese Movie!"). I almost don't know where to begin, so I'll start with the one scene that I liked. It was between Willem Dafoe and a priest in confessional as Dafoe struggles with his conscience. It was surprisingly well written and well acted and is the only redeeming scene in the whole film, to be honest.
The fact that this movie blatantly steals scenes from other, better movies is not what makes it so bad (but now that I think of it, stealing is one of the crimes that is punishable by death according to the Saints. We should be so lucky). No, what makes Boondock Saints bad is that it does such a poor job of ripping them off. John Woo might consider dying early so he can start spinning in his grave. I can practically see him taking a razor to his own wrist during the laughable shoot-out between the Saints and Billy Connelly (that's right, I said Billy Connelly). Woo might say something like, "What have I wrought? The horror, the horror!" right before his arterial spray covered his big screen television. Another tragic, Boondock Saints related death.
You might find yourself asking certain questions while watching this movie. Fear not, for I have the answers you seek! For example you might say to yourself, how are these guys with so good at killing when they have no experience and their basic attack plans involve standing in the center of rooms surrounded by bad guys with only a handgun in each paw and some cool sunglasses. That's easy - It's obvious that they've seen John Woo films and know that a guy firing two guns at once looks too damn cool to get killed, and because all these scenes are in unnecessary slow motion shots it gives them plenty of time to dodge the bullets. Another question you might ask is why is the Willem Dafoe character gay when it's obvious that writer/director Troy Duffy knows even less about gay people than I do? What a silly question. It's so that Duffy can have ridiculous scenes where Dafoe prances around crime scenes while listening to CDs on his portable disc player as if he were conducting an orchestra instead of gathering evidence. So he can include clever scenes of Dafoe calling his lover a fag because he wants to cuddle and saying something similar to a bartender at a gay bar. See, he's a macho homosexual. He's a rebel. He doesn't play by the rules, and he sure as hell doesn't cuddle. Oh, and we must not forget the scene where Dafoe dresses up as a blond prostitute so he can infiltrate the mob's headquarters. I would have liked to see how this movie played in San Francisco. I can picture men turning to the person next to them and saying, "We don't act like that, do we?" Why do they say a prayer before whacking the bad guys? Don't you know anything? It's because they've seen Pulp Fiction, only Samuel L. Jackson's character was more honest about his motivations for quoting the Bible.
Some random complaints I have - an extremely poor attempt at capturing the randomness, shock and surprise of Vincent Vega and Marvin's "explosive" conversation in the back of Jules' car in Pulp Fiction. A little of Rocko goes a long way, and I felt cheated when he wasn't given a slow, painful death. It would be my guess that Rocko's command of the english language is not the greatest as he seems to only know about fifty words, half of which begin with "F" and end in "K". How did Billy Connelly become such a feared hitman when his method of whacking a guy involves standing in the middle of the street in broad daylight with a bunch of guns under his trench coat and waiting to be seen before firing. This could only seem like an ambush to the Saints, probably thinking, "Why didn't we think of that?" Rocko's extremely old and lame joke that grinds the movie to a dead halt. And the list goes on.
Those wacky Weinstien brothers - when they're not frequenting bars looking for the next Quintin Tarantino or Kevin Smith, they're buying Oscars (I'll never forgive them for robbing Saving Private Ryan of Best Picture). Guys, stick to what you know best. The money spent making this film would have been better spent on the catering budget on the next Scream film. Someone really has to feed Courtney Cox. Apparently lack of food has made her dizzy and she accidentally married David Arquette. Someone get her a Twinkie, STAT! But I digress. This movie is a terrible waste of time. It was recommended to me by some young crack addicts who thought it was the greatest film ever made. But that seems to be the general consensus regarding this film. People love it. So I guess that makes me wrong this time, does it? No, that can't be it. Everyone else is wrong, I'm right. 2/10 stars for this turkey. G'night!