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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Boondock Saints

00:14 / 03.04.02

I've been wanting to start a thread on this for awhile, but for the longest time this flick was either unavailable or you could only rent it at Blockbuster here in the US. Kinda pointless to talk about a movie nobody else has a chance to see. The other day I saw this in the video store here so, in the US anyways, none of y'all have an excuse not to see "Boondock Saints". It's a vigilante movie about 2 Irish brothers from Boston who take it upon themselves to rid the city of the Mafia & the Russian mob. Yeah I know it sounds like boring, cliched premise, but this movie is not only a great action movie, but has something alot of action movies don't have: a damn fine sense of humor.

The two brothers are played by Norman Reedus ("Blade II" & "Gossip") & Sean Patrick Flanery ("Suicide Kings"). It's also got Willem Dafoe as FBI special agent Smecker & Billy Connolly as the scariest sonofabitch I've seen in a long time. I'd explain more, but I don't want to give away any of the plot. Also, I found these little bits of nifty trivia on the iMDB website:

"The story of Kitty Genovese, told by the priest in the opening segment of the movie, is taken from Alan Moore's comic masterpiece Watchmen. The killing of Genovese prompted one of the book's characters, Rorschach, to become a vigilante like the two protagonists."

and

"The tattoo on Connor's hand says "Veritas" (truth) and the tattoo on Murphy's hand says "Aequitas" (justice)."

Rent this flick--it's well worth you 4 bucks.

09:23 / 03.04.02

The Boston portions of this flick were shot right around the time I was getting into the business here - a lot of my friends worked as set dressers and production assistants on the film. I finally saw it when it played in a limited run at the Somerville Theatre, and I really didn't like it much. You're right about the sense of humour - in some places it's there in spades, but so are the cliches, and they're not very entertainingly played most of the time. I nearly walked out of the film about 20 minutes in - then Ron Jeremy came onscreen and I figured I'd give it a couple more minutes. Never managed to walk out after that, but my opinion remains mixed at best.

DaFoe was good about 50% of the time - based on my own observation and the questions I asked of a couple on-set friends, his good stuff came when he was able to do what he wanted to do, and the bad bits are the result of being directed, for whatever that's worth. He is great in places, though. Much like Shadow of the Vampire, where DaFoe provides a reason to see an otherwise poor film.

S
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Incidentally, one of my friends was the script supervisor on the Boston portions. At some point she went up to Toronto to visit the set there. She was treated well; some of the crew thought she was Duffy's girlfriend or something, so she was quickly given a chair next to the monitor where another woman was sitting. The girl was pretty hot and my friend was trying to figure out who she was...she finally leaned over to introduce herself...to Willem DaFoe.

14:23 / 03.04.02

Personally I loved the flick. It's an action film, not high art, but it's fun. Been meaning to pick it up on DVD for awhile. May be once the finances get clear in the next couple of months.

14:52 / 03.04.02

>>>The story of Kitty Genovese, told by the priest in the opening segment of the movie, is taken from Alan Moore's comic masterpiece Watchmen. The killing of Genovese prompted one of the book's characters, Rorschach, to become a vigilante like the two protagonists." <<<

Er, Kitty Genovese was a real person and her murder a real event.

http://www.lihistory.com/8/hs818a.htm

09:32 / 24.07.02

A sequel to "Boondock Saints" is now in pre-production. AICN story here: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=12836 & official website here: TheBoondockSaints.com (duh).