REVIEW: The Boondock Saints and The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery

Last night my sister was in the mood to watch some kick-ass action film. For several weeks now, whenever I check the latest DVD releases, top on the list was The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day. Despite not knowing what the movie is, I downloaded it. The poster showed two guys holding guns, hey, it must be an action film, right?

We started with The Boondock Saints (released in 1999) and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun watching an action film. Set in Boston, the plot revolves around blue collar Irish fraternal twins, Murphy (Norman Reedus) and Connor  MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery) who turned vigilantes. With the help of their Italian friend Rocco (David Della Rocco), they started eradicating Russian and Italian mobs. Willem Dafoe gave a wonderfully disturbing performance as FBI Agent Paul Smecker while Bill Connolly played the mysteriously dangerous Il Duce. It's dark comedy with good looking bad boys (Norman Reedus has an Orlando Bloom thing going on and Rocco kinda reminds me of Dave Grohl) and the film in its entirety is indulgent, ridiculous and cheesy - everything you need for great entertainment (keyword: entertainment).

The movie didn't make money and was barely heard overseas. However, this didn't deter Troy Duffy into making a sequel, even if it took him 10 years to make it. 

At the beginning of The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day (released in 2009), we see a priest getting murdered and we learned that the MacManus twins and Il Duce (who turned out to be their Dad) are now living in Ireland. After hearing the death of the priest and how he died, they decided to go back to Boston and kill every last mofos who's involved in it. In the sequel, we see that the twins are more confident as killing machines and they have ugly tats on their back. There's no more Rocco or Smecker but what we got instead are Hispanic Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr) and high-heeled wearing southern belle Special Agent Eunice (Julie Benz trying to audition for Kyra Sedgewick's role in The Closer). We got rewarded by a cameo from Peter Fonda as the brilliant The Roman and we got to know more about Il Duce's past. All in all, like most sequels, it has bigger budget, more action scenes but still pales in comparison to the original. It's not bad. It's still so much fun but not better than the original. 

I am now a fan of The Boondock Saints and hope that Troy Duffy will make another film for the fans. 

At the end of the sequel, we see the twins in prison and Smecker and Eunice reunited. These ex-FBI agents are now under Catholic Church custody and are planning to get the boys out of prison. A third instalment, perhaps?