The Boondock Saints

The Boondock Saints - 1999

Director: Troy Duffy
Writer: Troy Duffy
Players: Willem Dafoe, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144117/]

The Gist:
Two delightfully Irish brothers work in a meat factory, horse around at the bar, get shitfaced, go to church and mutter prayers, and generally act quaintly Irish. Then some Russian mobsters fuck with the them in a bar. They end up killing said mobsters later in self-defense and it becomes a formative moment. They contract themselves out to the Italian mob to go and kill bad guys (ie the leaders of the Russian mob syndicate), then end up turning on the Italian mob because, well, they're bad guys too. And sometimes they kill people jacking off in a strip club because they're bad guys too. Oh but they like their one Italian friend even though he's not a very good guy. They let him kill bad guys too. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe is a oddly characterized gay FBI official hunting them down. He decides that the brothers are pretty righteous and then he starts killing bad guys too. The Italian Mob freaks out about all this killing and hires this scary guy to kill the brothers. He turns out to be their father and ends up killing bad guys too. Then there's a big diatribe at the end about judging all the bad people before they kill the last bad person in a courtroom probably full of police officers though you'd never know it by watching the film. Then the movie ends with hokey mock interviews about the "saints" and their role in society. End of movie.

Why It's Kind of Cool:
This movie is at its best when it is building a mythos around its characters. You have odd religious connotations about the brothers, a general feeling that they may hold some immortal characteristics. They say their "family prayer" before killing their main targets, they stage the slain with their arms folded and pennies on their eyes. Also you have this mysterious scene near the beginning where they reveal that they can pretty much speak all the world languages fluently. There is the feeling that they are "heaven sent", angels of destruction, and so on. Of course this is wonderfully undercut by their general Irish rowdiness and their laissez-faire about who they decide to kill and their attitude to their Italian companion (who accidentally kills cats and seems to enjoy the killing more for killing sake and less for any vigilante idealism). Bill Connolly is also appropriately handled with a great mythic quality, a mysterious assassin only set lose at great times of need. And so on. Also the killing scenes are pretty cool and Willem Dafoe is often quite fascinating as a gay FBI agent who seems rather hostile toward other homosexuals (derisively calling them "fags" on more than one occasion). Also, the scene where a cross dressing Willem Dafoe walks around a house killing off Russian mobsters is worth seeing the movie alone.

Why It Could Be Better:
Despite its lofty intentions to create a myth around its characters, Duffy's movie falls flat by the end. This seems to be because he has made a genuinely hollow, if somewhat enjoyable experience. He then seeks to justify his characters and turns his movie from an enjoyably campy Tarantinoesque production into a trite platitude about vigilantism and moral judgment. If nothing else, Willem Dafoe's drunken slip preceding his shift in moral thinking defies any realistic approach to the film. It is so obviously a narrative device that it, along with other moments, cements the film's status as an uneven B movie undeserving of its cult praise. Why? Because it is indicative of a greater problem of the film: it's very transparent. When Duffy uses a device it is awkward and unruly. To use the Dafoe example, it is simply more convenient to the story that Willem Dafoe switches sides. So he has a drunken night of conscience and talks with a priest in the morning. And then we're good, Willem Dafoe is a crazy mob killing mad man in drag. Another example is that its more convienent for the mysterious hitman to be the boys' father because it ends the conflict so easily. This is likewise inferred without tact or subtlety. Other times you notice bad filmmaking are when you see scenes that serve no purpose at all and should have been cut. All this stands in contrast to what the film does right, create an authentic bond between the two brothers. This bond keeps the film afloat through moderately meaningless, yet fun, bloodshed. But by the end the movie wears thin.

On Another Note:
I watched this movie for the first time last night, and watching through the rather lame credits I noticed something. I am in these credits! I rewound the DVD to make sure, I spent a good hour obsessing over it, going over the same three seconds. That is me. Or the most startling doppleganger ever (who appears to have also broken his nose and talks like me and has my mannerisms and is wearing clothes that I own...though sadly the clothes are rather ambiguous. A blue sweater and a Boston cap is hardly concrete evidence). How could this be though? The film was made in 1999! I was fourteen in 1999 and this is clearly the Jacob who lived in Boston. Ah but I did some research and found that these are new credits shot after the fact of the film, by a different director. This would presumably lead to the conclusion that it was for a re-release of the film or something (somewhat verified by asking people who watched it before 2007 if the credits were there, most seem to think they were not). But when were the credits shot?! I cannot find out and its driving me crazy. I need proof that these credits were shot between August 2007 and May 2008 (my short tenure in Boston). Frankly, this pisses me off for some unknown reason. Probably because I don't ever remember this happening, I never signed any consent form, and I have to doubt my sanity and my own sense of identity because Troy Duffy and company are assholes who don't let me know I'm going to be in an incredibly popular cult film that, unfortunately, helps define my generation (even if only for the duration of around three seconds). What the fuck Troy Duffy?



[I am in at 1:36 saying "I don't want to talk about it" and waving the camera off.]