“But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”
A tattoo artist I know once told me that they had a rush of youngsters coming into their parlor asking for “the tattoo from ‘Boondock Saints’” (an Irish cross on the inside of the arm). Setting aside the idiocy and unoriginality stemming from asking for a tattoo that means nothing except that you saw it in a movie that was made a decade ago, it pointed out the rise of this flick as a cult classic. So, I had to check it out for myself.
Originally released in 1999, it was re-released in theaters in 2006. It was written and directed by Troy Duffy, who apparently had been inspired to write the screenplay when he witnessed a drug dealer rob a corpse for heroin money in Los Angeles. Casting problems stymied the production of the film itself, along with Duffy’s own ego problems; at one point, Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Dorff had been tabbed for the lead brother roles—which, obviously, would have been met with horrible results.
The movie deals primarily with the concept of vigilante justice. Twin brothers Connor and Murphy McManus, played by Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus, respectively, are intent on avenging their dead mother, who was killed under circumstances we’re not privy to—or so we are somewhat led to believe. Either that or they are inspired by a sermon about the sad, incredible tale of Kitty Genovese. Living in poverty in an old jail or locker room, the brothers toil at dead-end jobs, brawl, go to church, punch women, speak many languages and, of course, drink. A lot. All of those factors eventually lead to them getting caught in the cross-fire between the Irish and Russian mafia, thrust into the middle of an international gang war they wanted little part of. After an evening in their favorite bar (served by a hysterical old bartender with Tourette’s), they get into a dustup with Russian gangsters that leads to a couple of dead Ruskies—and the brothers emerging as prime suspects for the Boston PD.
Cue the arrival of FBI Special Agent Paul Smecker, an eccentric, flamboyantly gay character played by Willem Defoe (apparently channeling Denis Leary). Using a Discman (which is funny, for some reason), Smecker listens to classical music as he investigates crime scenes and creeps out his colleagues with his effeminate ways. However, in a movie riddled with gay overtones, the agent attempts to fight back against the stereotypes in some ways; in one scene, after an intimate encounter with an Asian man, he kicks him out of bed, saying, “Cuddle? What a fag.”
The shot-up brothers eventually turn themselves into Smecker, playing up the fact that they acted in self-defense and using the jail as a safe haven against Russian mafia reprisals. The McManus brothers turn out to be local heroes among the cops, giving them even more protection, and Smecker realizes that they will bear close watching. In a strange scene set in the jail in the middle of the night, God supposedly revealed to the brothers simultaneously that their mission is to punish the wicked; the revelation isn’t clear in the movie and I only read about it in other quarters, so that’s a pretty major plot point to leave clouded in confusion.
Using foreshadowing and flashbacks, more characters are woven into the story, including a surprise appearance by the “Hedgehog,” Ron Jeremy, as a mafia henchman and the husband of Chloe from “24,” Carlo Rota, as boss “Papa Joe” Yakavetta. Somewhat accidentally, the McManus brothers stumble into the Yakavetta line of fire by intercepting a shit-ton of money involved in a Yakavetta drug deal, aided by the hysterical Rocco, a “Serpico” lookalike and Yakavetta mule with a variety of issues. The brothers put coins over the eyes of their adversaries, an ancient ritual intended to pay the toll for the dead to get across the river Styx.
Eventually, the brothers realize that they can steal from the evil while removing them from the world (they refer to themselves humorously as 7/11), so they establish a vendetta against Boston’s criminal underworld, eventually incorporating Rocco into their exploits. Rocco gets off to an auspicious start in overcompensating for his pushover reputation, killing a few Mafioso in a café (including one who looked liked Borat), accidentally murdering his sometimes-girlfriend’s cat, fondling an unconscious stripper (to which he says, “I’ll tip her!”) and shooting up a strip joint.
Driven by the credo “Evil man. Dead man.”, the trio’s efforts to exterminate as many pieces of shit in Beantown as possible forces the Yakavetta family to bring an animal out of retirement. “Il Duce” is painted as a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Kaiser Soze, a caged and imprisoned weapon to be used only as a last resort. He’s played by the always-underrated Billy Connolly, and after his pardon is bought, he goes after the threesome with an unstoppable, demonic pursuit. The epic moment of the movie comes when Il Duce tracks down the brothers and Rocco, and what ensues is a slow-motion, hellacious gunfight set to classical music in a really neat scene.
Smecker keeps stumbling across and investigating gorier and gorier scenes, and his inability to track down the culprits leads to something resembling a mental breakdown. He envisions a reenactment of the gunfight in another tremendous effect that depicts him walking through the flashbacks as bullets, blood and body parts fly all around him. The haunted Smecker gets his big break when he finds Rocco’s finger (somewhat predictably) lying in a bush. When the trio realize that Smecker will eventually find out who they are, some in-fighting ensues, although they team back up to fix their wounds with an iron, in a rather disturbing and pain-inducing scene.
Also somewhat predictably, Rocco goes over the edge during an intense confrontation with a priest inside a confessional booth. When the Yakavetta family eventually catches the three, Rocco meets an untimely end, marked by his final words of “Don’t ever stop.” The McManus brothers gain a couple of unlikely partners when Smecker enables them and Il Duce joins their cause as well. Again, in a rather unclear scene, the audience is asked to make the supposition that Il Duce is, in fact, the brothers’ father. In the next-to-last scene, the brothers and their father execute “Papa Joe” in a courtroom, gaining access thanks to the help of the police and Feds.
The credits run to a pretty cool documentary-type treatment of Boston citizens (even though the flick is filmed in Canada) reacting to the question of whether “The Saints” (they are never referred to as “The Boondock Saints” in the movie) are good or evil, asked by a reporter played by the girl who plays Holly on “The Office.” We listen in as Bostonians pontificate on whether killing is ever justified, whether the McManus trio are purely murderers or whether they are actually doing a service in protecting the city and its people from the harshest criminals.
It’s an intriguing movie, buoyed by some cool scenes, a unique premise and an aggressive soundtrack. However, the promise delivered in the first half of the flick disappears in the latter half, as the film devolves into a shoot-‘em-up. Sure, there is lots of blood and some timely one-liners, but the philosophical bent and discussion of morality offered up in the beginning are quickly forgotten at the end. Among other holes, are we really led to believe that the brothers just worked in a slaughterhouse and moped around up until their revelation? Is it not strange that they fell into their mission as evil exterminators accidentally? Failing the authenticity of his name, Flanery is simply not believable in his role as a badass; he’s just too dainty to pull it off. Also, there should simply be zero confusion as to major plot points such as God telling a couple of layabouts to start killing criminals, the references to the mother and Kitty Genovese, and whether or not Il Duce was father to the McManus brothers.
All told, it was an interesting, cool movie and well worth watching, but it fell far short of most of the elements that turn a forgotten flick into a cult classic. But it may be too late to stop the momentum; apparently, the sequel, “Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day,” has already been filmed. I didn’t quite get what all the hubbub was about, but apparently more blood is on the way.
Oh well. Maybe it’ll at least have some awesome-like tattoos in it.
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