Climbing Higher Pictures

The Boondock Saints is one of the most successful cult films in recent memory. Blacklisted from theaters after two weeks of release following the tragedy of Columbine, Troy Duffy‘s ode to action movie mayhem and bloodshed glorification found a home in the hearts of many on DVD. With only a 17% positive rating on RottenTomatoes, the first film clearly has its own fanbase, a fanbase which doesn’t include most of the film critic population, and from the early reports the sequel does little to appeal to those who didn’t care for the inagural installment. Now an entire decade later, does the follow up offer nothing more than what you’d expect, or does it reach beyond the safety of the first movie’s shadow. Find out, below…

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day Review

By Ryan Hamelin

Movie Grade: B+

This is one of those unusual cases when I’ve found myself really enjoying something while simultaneously admitting that, on a conscious or logical level, it is entirely a guilty pleasure. I’m a huge fan of The Boondock Saints, having rented it on a whim one dark and rainy night and saw it with no hype and no clue what I was actually getting into. It’s a favorite for me because of how completely ludicrous it is, how it revels in its action set pieces, and how painfully funny it managed to be in between the bloodshed, keeping us rooting for the vigilante brothers despite their violence. Having the cops show up at the destroyed crime scene and flashing back to what actually happened is still one of my favorite uses of that particular filmmaking cliché, and I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of that kind of scene construction since.

All that being said, fans have been awaiting a follow up to the original film for an entire decade now. The script was written a ways back but legal disputes and other issues had caused it to hang in limbo, waiting for the big break that would finally get the sequel on theater screens near you. About a year ago, the legal battles finally concluded, the cast and crew got back together, and they set out to rekindle the kind of movie magic that only gets better with time. Unfortunately for them, the anticipation has also reached a fever pitch, and had the sequel come out only a few years after the original, they may have been able to exceed the hype (suffering Indiana Jones 4 syndrome here). Instead, they’ve buckled down and done their best to continue on a tried and true formula, to varying degrees of success.

In the Q&A which followed the film, Troy Duffy said that his original cut of the movie was over 3 hours and 10 minutes long. The version we saw was around an hour and 40 minutes. Duffy believes that a director’s cut will come out on DVD at some point, and for his sake, I hope he’s right because the biggest problem with the film was in its editing. The beginning is extremely rushed, as though whole scenes were snipped down to one or two line clips, and it feels like the kind of lets-get-the-boys-back-to-Boston-sooner note that a studio executive would give. After everything calms down and the story settles into a natural pace, its like we’ve returned home again. Most of the jokes hit the mark, the action scenes are enjoyably off-the-wall, and all the characters you’d expect to see come back in some capacity. There’s even one extremely memorable cameo towards the end of the film which will surprise the audience and exhilarate the fans. I’m never going to give that one away, simply because it was worth having to pick my mouth up off the floor.

After so many years, you’d be surprised how natural all these actors feel in their parts. The awkwardness I was expecting to see never arrived, and you’d be hard pressed to find a new addition who couldn’t pull their weight. Clifton Collins Jr. and Julie Benz, in particular, fit right in with the rest of the gang, and you find yourself appreciating their presence more and more long after the credits roll. Without them, the movie could have gone dangerously stale, and Duffy keeps the lightness of the original intact by using his characters in interesting ways, the results of which may surprise you. The slow motion gunplay is never too far removed from the exposition, and the pace is certainly tight, though probably more tight than it should have been. It’s a shame that the movie starts off so disjointedly, as it prevents you from getting involved until the second act, and I think the finale could have been even more impressive had the audience already been firmly along for the ride.

For every lame piece of dialogue or campy moment, there is an incredibly satisfying homage or a scene which hits all the right notes. The film’s buckshot consistency is part of its charm, a sequel which doesn’t really care about your expectations and focuses on doing what it’s best at, being all kinds of badass. Not terrific, but certainly not terrible, I’d say that it’s well worth seeing on the big screen, if only because it will be the first time most viewers will get a chance to see their cult heroes presented in that way. Want to know what the fanboy in me is thinking right now? Bring on Boondock 3.