“It aint rocket surgery.”
The H-Bomb: After slaughtering all the high profile gangsters in Boston, the MacManus Brothers have spent the past decade hiding out in Ireland. But when a priest is murdered,the “Saints” come back to Beantown for one reason and one reason only… to shoot the shit out of some bad guys.
Just to state this upfront, I am not a huge fan of the original “Boondock Saints”. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it, I just never quite understood the fervent following that film has. It’s entertaining enough, but it’s no classic by any means. For me it played like one of a million Tarantino clones… except made by someone who wasn’t nearly as good a writer or director as QT. So I went into Troy Duffy’s long gestating follow up with modest expectations, and to his credit, the film lived up to those expectations precisely… no more, no less.
Fans of the original are going to love this, because essentially it’s more of the same. More shootouts, more black humor, more drunken Irishmen swearing like sailors. Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) are drawn out of retirement by said slaying of Priest, and resume their old mission of ridding Boston of it’s criminal element. This time they’re aided not only by dear old dad (Billy Connolly), but also by enthusiastic new recruit Romeo (Clifton Collins, Jr., sporting one of the most ridiculous haircuts in motion picture history), and FBI Agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), who happens tobe the protege of Agent Smecker, Willem Dafoe’s character from the first movie.
A large problem this movie has is that it more or less plays out exactly like the original. Sure, there are a couple of twists and surprises thrown in (loved how it went into the back-story of Connolly’s character), but overall it seems to tread same old ground; the “Saints” find out where a group of gangsters will be gathering, stage an absurdly elaborate ambush, then execute the ambush in an amusingly sloppy manner. Repeat those steps about ten times, and you basically have the whole movie. Anyone looking for anything of more substance or depth should look elsewhere. The debate about whether vigilantism is right or wrong is brought up a couple of times, but it’s presented in a half baked and superficial way.
Being that this was made ten years after the original, I would’ve expected writer/director Duffy to have grown as filmmaker during that time, but, for the most part, he has not. The film looks more polished than the first one, but that is most likely due to a higher budget rather than his increased skill as a director, and the dark humor is as hit-or-miss as it was before. When it hits, it’s laugh out loud hilarious. When it misses, it is painful to endure.
Part of what makes this film work on a popcorn level, aside from the bloody shoot outs, is the enthusiasm of the cast. The actors seemed to have a blast making this movie and it shows. Flanery, Reedus, and Connolly are all back and as solid as ever, even if they’re all longer in the tooth (Flanery and Reedus are certainly not as fresh faced as they used to be). Benz is tough and believable as the only woman of the bunch, and at points actually seems to channel Willem Dafoe, which is as fascinating as it is creepy. Collins really sinks his teeth into his role and steals every scene he’s in. Judd Nelson and Peter Fonda do a great job rounding out the colorful supporting cast, and there are even a few surprise cameos (including ones by characters who were killed off in the first movie). Everybody in front of the camera is firing on all cylinders, no question.
“The Boondock Saints II” may not be an Oscar contender, but Duffy definitely understands what it was about his first film that made it such a cult hit, and played up those strengths with this sequel. (If you saw the documentary on Duffy, “Overnight”, then you know it’s something of a miracle that he ever got to work in showbiz again). While I found it all merely moderately entertaining cinematic junk food, a no brainer action flick, the die hard fans of the first movie, and you know who you are, will most definitely be pleased.
