In
the spring of 1997, a beer slinger/bouncer named Troy Duffy hit the
aspirant-filmmaker lotto when he sold his gritty screenplay The Boondock Saints
for $300,000 to Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein, who promptly attached Duffy
to direct, agreed to let his band do the soundtrack and, as a goodwill
bonus, even offered to buy and throw in co-ownership of the Melrose
Avenue bar where Duffy worked. If Schwab’s was the old symbol of
Tinseltown discovery, this was a radical new overhaul for the
post-Tarantino age of underclass, videostore-fed auteurism.
Cut
to a couple years later. After enduring months of Duffy’s boorish,
bizarre behavior, and all manner of contretemps over casting and
budget, Miramax put the film — about two avenging angel Irish brothers
and the Latin they intone before blasting various criminal-types in the
head — into turnaround, and dumped it back into the marketplace,
mortally wounded in reputation. It would eventually get made on a
relative shoestring budget, suffer an ignominious, deservedly bashed
New York/Los Angeles theatrical release and find on video a small,
drunken audience addicted to a surfeit of late ’90s, indie-style
posturing. All of which brings us to this two-disc DVD release of The Boondock Saints, ostensibly prelude to a not-nearly-long-enough-awaited (direct-to-video?) sequel.
, blue-collar Irish twin brothers who work<br />
in a Boston meat-packing plant and experience a religious awakening<br />
that leads them to believe they’ve been chosen to rid the world of<br />
evil. But as they unleash a brutal stream of retribution on various<br />
burly, Russian underworld criminals, FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem<br />
Dafoe), leading the investigation into the assailants behind these<br />
bloody murders, comes closer and closer to cracking the case and,<br />
surprisingly, finds himself torn between busting the vigilantes and<br />
joining them.</p>
<p><b>An orgiastic assemblage of genre clichés you’ve seen<br />
hundreds of times before</b>, from balletic gun shoot-outs and slow-mo<br />
deaths to block-headed, epithet-fueled dialogue exchanges, <i>The Boondock Saints</i><br />
does score some minor points for making Smecker gay, an interesting<br />
character choice that sets him apart from most lawman-types in movies<br />
of this ilk. But its story is a bunch of blarney, and <b>its rendering<br />
both garish and amateurish</b>. </p>
<p>Housed in a nice, faux-metallic case that evinces an iconic look, this unrated special edition of <i>The Boondock Saints</i><br />
extends the film’s blood and mayhem by only a few scant minutes. The<br />
primary disc houses one of the main points of interest, <b>an audio<br />
commentary track from Duffy that is at times borderline contrite, but<br />
also willfully abstruse when it comes to specifics about the project’s<br />
fall from grace</b>. Hardcore devotees to the title may find tidbits about<br />
the haphazardness of the movie’s set detail and construction<br />
interesting, but Hollywood rumor junkies will feel largely unfulfilled<br />
by this track. Duffy can be amusing, as when fondly recalling a<br />
two-page letter from the archdiocese of Toronto calling him “the spawn<br />
of Satan,” but he showcases his functional unawareness of production<br />
savvy when confessing first choices for various musical cues came from<br />
the Beatles, the Doors and Led Zeppelin, and then expressing surprise<br />
at their cost. He’s also amazingly myopic; Duffy still blames the<br />
Columbine shootout for scuttling the movie’s chances at a wider<br />
distribution pick-up, and claims it was “literally blacklisted” from<br />
American screens, like it was some sort of international smash. </p>
<p><b>Co-star Billy Connelly, who plays enigmatic assassin Il Duce, also<br />
sits for a separate audio commentary track</b>, but his remarks deteriorate<br />
rather quickly into generalized observations about low-budget,<br />
independent filmmaking. The set’s second disc includes a clutch of<br />
deleted scenes, outtakes, the original theatrical trailer, cast and<br />
crew filmographies and a printable copy of the movie’s shooting script,<br />
all the better to read along and see exactly how many expletives were<br />
improvised, I suppose. <b>D (Movie) B+ (Disc)</b></p>
<div class=)
I’m sorry, but with regard to the film itself, this review is completely wrong. I have shown this movie to many people, all of different walks of life and tastes, and all of them loved “Boondock Saints”. This review is written with the prejudice of a soccer mom who doesn’t want her children watching “that smut”. The soundtrack is wonderful, the acting beautiful, and the gritty feel only serves to enhance the portrayal of the characters and their neighborhood.