Every person, whether they be a casual movie viewer, or enough of a film buff that they have written tens of thousands of words about film (heh heh), has holes in their experience of film. There are a lot of movies out there, and there is just not enough time in the day to watch them all. The Boondock Saints is a case in point. Until last night, I had never seen this film, even though it’s on the must-see list for white males of my generation. If I had grown up in the Boston area, I’m sure I would have seen it before now, as watching it is positively de rigueur up there.
The film, written and directed by Troy Duffy, follows a pair of Irish immigrant brothers in Boston, named Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus). They’re devoted Catholics, made clear early in the film, but in the same scene, it’s also made clear that the two of them are unrepentant badasses. Nobody in church looks that cool, but that’s what passes for character development in this movie.
Later, the viewer finds out the brothers have gotten themselves into a bit of trouble, resulting in a couple of Russian gangsters lying dead in an alleyway. Here, the film enters into a somewhat disjointed method of storytelling, as the MacManuses begin to cut a bloody swath through Boston’s criminal organizations. We viewers always seem to show up on the scene after the fact, accompanying FBI Agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) as he investigates the deaths, narrating his deductions as the reality plays out on screen in flashback. The most interesting aspect of this method is that, as the film progresses, what was, early on, straight flashbacks, become more and more muddled with current events in the movie’s timeline, like there’s a progression of decay where violence and Dafoe will soon meet without any need for speculation. If that was Duffy’s intent, then well done. If it was accidental, then no matter. Continue reading “The Empty Balcony: The Boondock Saints”
I was really hoping this movie would have been appropriate for the October Horrorshow. Alas, it was not. Sure, there is some exotic, overly aggressive wildlife to be found, and they do devour a good amount of the cast, but this movie is more a straight action flick than anything else. Too bad. I was looking forward to featuring this review right after Pitch Black. Well, at least it’s shitty!
I’m a sucker for Alien ripoffs. Really, I am. Something about the shared stories (monsters whittling down hapless cast members) strikes something elemental in my brain. The formula for films like Alien seems so fundamentally sound to modern storytelling that I bet, had he been alive in the era of science fiction, the Bard himself would have come up with it.