Ten years after its release and a lot of the honeymoon glow for The Boondock Saints has worn off. Repeat viewings aren’t too kind to The Boondock Saints if you’re not just watching the action sequences, and now that we’ve seen Troy Duffy’s follow-up effort it’s a lot easier to see just how close The Boondock Saints came to being a total train wreck. Yet there’s no denying that The Boondock Saints has become its own unique type of cult classic, albeit within a very specific generation. In honor of the film’s tenth birthday, Troy Duffy and the cast and crew have assembled a behind the scenes featurette and a digital copy for the “Truth and Justice” edition – but in case you were wondering, it’s otherwise the same Blu-ray package released two years ago.
If you went to college in the last 8 years, chances are you've seen The Boondock Saints. In fact, chances are you or a friend of yours went through a phase where you lauded it as the "most awesome movie ever". Maybe you've since come down from that Troy Duffy-lovin' cloud - maybe not. Personally, there was a time when I loved Boondock Saints for what is was: a trashy Saturday afternoon action flick that acted as an odd tribute to action flicks everywhere.
When you first see Boondock Saints, don't worry if you're initially blinded by this inexplicable love for the comedy or characters. Relish it. Truly enjoy it while it lasts because Boondock Saints doesn't get better with each viewing, it has the unfortunate tendency to get a little bit worse each time. Whether you're able to watch it 100 viewings down the road depends entirely on how much you revered it after that initial viewing. Me? Hell, I wrote a paper on the Boondock Saints my freshman year of college discussing how it viewed heroism. Take from that what you will.
Agent Smecker (Willem Dafoe) has an odd case on his hands. With the Mafioso population of Boston dropping dead left and right, Smecker's best lead in the case is a pair of brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) McManus. The case seems pretty open-and-close save for one issue: Smecker doesn't mind that the McManus brothers seem hell bent on killing the scum of Boston. There's even a part of him that would like to help. Caught between his responsibility to his job and moral code, Smecker tracks the efforts of the McManus brothers and their friend Rocco (David Della Rocco) as they seek out the seedy underbelly of Boston and wax it clean of the chest hair we call criminals. Enter their true opposition: Il Duce, a psychotic killer who gets his jollies by killing wiseguys.
Boondock Saints isn't without its flaws. The writing, characters and plot feel riddled with clichés at every turn, the cinematography is mediocre at best and the entire film is tinged with the arrogance of the director. You'll enjoy it the first few times around but the less you watch it the more you'll appreciate it.
Willem Dafoe and Billy Connolly make Boondock Saints worthwhile. Dafoe's performance goes so over the top while Connolly has to do little more than look menacing - but it's all about his presence. As Troy Duffy says on the audio commentary, "Billy Connolly looks like God" and it's true. The man reeks of age and salty tales...like...God? With Dafoe we get an exaggerated performance that helps us to understand why he's in the movie at all: this was fun for him, nothing more.
Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus perform well enough when on screen, but the addition of David Della Rocco makes some of their scenes unbearable. Troy Duffy thinks David Della Rocco is an acting gift from God. The rest of us see him for the loudmouth, talentless actor that he is. Our disagreement on Della Rocco's credentials wouldn't be so important if Rocco didn't seem to be in every scene. I think I can fairly say that the average person watching wants Rocco to get capped in the first 30 minutes. He doesn't. Shame.
David Ferry, Brian Mahoney and Bob Marley comprise the team of detectives struggling to get through Smecker's "How to Solve Crimes 101" crash course. These three may be the funniest part of the film. While the lines of Flanery and Reedus were meant to be humorous, it's these three who have the best interactions. But please, if you haven't seen this yet, refrain from ever making a "symbology" joke. It was never funny.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Troy Duffy - Honestly, I can't stand to listen to this man talk about how great he and his friends are. If you can, enjoy. Otherwise, stay away.
Outtakes - Your usual film fluff: actors missing their lines, people hitting each other harder than they should...and characters in bed with other characters. If you're like me, the outtake of David Della Rocco messing up his "Wyatt Earp" line was the nail in the coffin on his ability as an actor.
Deleted Scenes - I've always maintained that at least a few of these should have found their way into the original release as it helps explain the Il Duce character towards the end instead of just bitch slapping us with "Yeah, that's who he is."
Audio Commentary by Actor Billy Connolly - Pure gold. Truly, almost reason enough to go out and snag this. It could only have been better if Dafoe had tagged along. Hearing Connolly ramble on about what certain scenes remind him of is classic. The man's hilarious.
The Boondock Saints Script - Omitted in the "Truth and Justice" edition
"The Boondock Saints: The Film and the Phenomenon" - In spite of the effort in making this new featurette, the real value-adding aspect of the “Truth and Justice” edition is the digital copy. Contrary to what you might expect, the featurette “The Film and the Phenomenon”, the only new extra on the Blu-ray, will be more interesting for the newly initiated than those who first saw it in the film’s original craze. For the first-run fans, all of the interviews and stories about Troy Duffy and the creation of the film have been covered ad nauseum in articles, commentaries, and more. If you’re just tuning in though, and you haven’t traced through all that stuff as a repeat viewing fan inevitably does during their infatuation phase, then this featurette helps reduce the need for that. It doesn’t eliminate the need though because it’s somewhat partial to showing it all in a spin complimentary to Troy Duffy, as opposed to the 2003 documentary Overnight which offers a contrasting perspective and possibly a more honest one.
"The Boondock Saints - "Truth and Justice" Edition" is on sale June 14, 2011 and is rated R. Action. Written and directed by Troy Duffy. Starring Billy Connolly, Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flanery, Willem Dafoe.
