The Boondock Saints ** out of **** Spill Rating: RENTAL!

"And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In nomine Patri
Et Fili
Spiritus Sancti"
The Prayer

Every once and awhile, a film comes along that strikes a chord with people. When Boondock Saints came out in 1999, it made a paltry $30,000 in five theaters and destroyed director Troy Duffy's chance of being the next "Quentin Tarantino". (Duffy was being pitched as that) As the years went on, Saints gained a massive cult following, making a rumored $50 million off of DVD sales and spawning a sequel which just came out. My cousin said the film was a huge hit in his college and after pressuring me to see it, I finally caved in and watched it. I was prepared to see a bloody, fun movie about two Irish brothers taking back Boston from the criminal underworld but I was extremely disappointed by the result.

I really wanted to like The Boondock Saints but every time I started to love it, director Troy Duffy threw in a completely ridiculous or nonsensical scene that takes me out. If there is one thing that hurts Saints the most, its the lack of plot or in better words; a driving force. That is the one thing that the sequel drastically improves on. The McManus brothers just decide to take back the city for no reason at all. In these types of movies, someone close to the main character dies which thrusts them into revenge but there is nothing that forces them into it.

Willem Dafoe comes in as a extremely gay FBI agent on the tracks the McManus Brothers. His character is completely insane and random but he is the best thing about the film. Whenever he finds the latest victims of the Saints, he recreates what happened while giving what a can only call an epileptic seizure while listening to opera music.

The film has many creative scenes and has a great sense of humor but the film never comes together as a satisfying whole. There is no plot to speak of, the gunplay is boring, and it ends in a way that had me saying "That's it?!" I can tell why many people love this film but I have to disagree. There is nothing here that warrants this film a cult classic.