The Movie:

The Boondock Saints is a ridiculously over-stylized and cliché ridden film that came to some notoriety when it was withdrawn from theaters after only a couple of days when the Columbine High shootings sent America into a panic. It went on to become a bit of a hit in foreign markets and on home video and has since grown a sizeable cult following. But is it a good movie?

Meh. It has its moments.

The film follows two Irish immigrant brothers, Connor (Sean Patrick Flannery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) McMannus, who live in a rancid apartment and work at a meat packing plant in Boston. In their spare time, they hang out at a pub run by an old guy with Tourett's Syndrome with their Italian pal, Rocco (David Della Rocco). When a bunch of Russian mobsters crash the party at the pub one night, telling the bartender he has to close down, a fight breaks out and the McMannus brothers wind up killing the Russians in a fight in the alleyway near the bar.

The cops do what they can to figure out who killed these guys and why, and soon an F.B.I. agent named Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) is on the scene, listening to opera on his walkman while examining the crime scene and degrading Boston homicide cops by making them get him coffee. Smecker starts to put two and two together as the McMannus brothers find they have a knack for taking out criminals and decide to make a full time job of it. As more and more gangsters wind up dead, there's more and more pressure put on Smecker to bring the culprits in, but there's more to this than simple vigilante justice and Smecker knows that he might just have to bring in a secret weapon (in the rather unexpected form of Billy Connolly).

As entertaining a picture as The Boondock Saints is, and it is a good time at the movies, you've got to periodically cringe at the Tarantino-inspired dialogue and John Woo wannabe slow motion camerawork. First time writer/director Troy Duffy shows a load of promise here but very little originality. Thankfully, Flannery and Reedus make for a likeable pair of anti-heroes and Dafoe's completely over the top performance as their would-be foil is hard not to appreciate. The storyline is fairly thin and it seems a mere afterthought meant to piece together a series of creative, blood soaked gun battles but it gets the job done.

More problematic than the dialogue is the decision to use Toronto to stand in for Boston and anyone familiar with both cities will have no trouble telling what was shot where. On top of that, a needless subplot involving Smecker's homosexuality adds nothing to the story save for what we can only assume is meant to be a cheap laugh. The Russian mobsters are as oafish as you'd expect, probably even more so, and their accents ridiculously thick as are the McMannus brothers' thick Irish brogue. It's a film that seems to revel in stereotypes, and not always to positive effect. The novelty casting of Ron Jeremy as a hood actually works, however, as does Billy Connolly in a role you don't expect him to play.

In the end, if you think too much about this film you simply wind up pulling it apart as the logic gaps, goofy characters and a few technical goofs make it ripe for the picking. That said, if you don't take it too seriously (and there are obviously moments where you're not supposed to) the picture is a good bit of ridiculously violent fun.

Video:

...The Boondock Saints looks pretty good in the 1080p AVC encoded 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on this disc, which appears to be identical to the transfer on the previous Blu-ray release from 2009. While it's not going to be a disc you pull out to show off your HDTV, it's a fine effort none the less. Detail isn't as strong as the latest Hollywood blockbuster release and there's a bit of noise in some scenes but aside from that the movie looks pretty good here. Blacks are nice and strong and skin tones look pretty natural though at times they tend to run a little bit hot, as do reds. The image doesn't quite have the depth that you might want out of a Blu-ray transfer but it's a noticeable step up from the standard definition DVD.