Movie Review: The Boondock Saints (1999)

starring: willem dafoe, sean patrick flanery, norman reedus, david della rocco, bill connolly

irish fraternal twins are annointed by God to scour Boston of evil after killing two russian mob goons in defense. a masterful and and highly eclectic detective, called in from the FBI, trail the 'Saints' in their high-profile killings of organized crime members.

this movie was downgraded to an R after the initial rating of NC-17 called for some editting of very explicitly violent scenes. indeed, this movie is as violent and gratuitous in it's use of unkosher language as snatch and fight club and other crime/action thrillers blah blah blah who cares? i don't normally find ridiculous violence or swearing funny, but this was funny.

the crux of the movie is in the ethical dilemma of vigilante justice, particularly through violent means. now, the movie does not exactly present a thoroughly balanced case, so don't expect to come out of watching it a changed person. incidentally this was released just a short time before the columbine incident so it sort of got mashed out.

anyways...

cinematically the movie was fluid, employing interesting time jumps and replays that leave the observant viewer a sense of satisfaction when he predicts the next scene. the interplay between the killings and the investigation after (or before) is fluid and in one of them interlinked. dafoe is hilarious as the FBI agent assigned to the case, condescending, flamboyantly homosexual, eccentric to the t, the exaggerated eclectic genius, all performed beautifully. the brothers, connor and murphy macmanus, were masterfully played (sean patrick flanery, norman reedus).

with all the seriousness involved in gun violence, the movie is obtusely light and pokes fun even at the stylized movie gunfights. granted, the audience should be wary in endorsing any form of violence. and for a movie riddled with violence, there is a lot of love in it too.

while there are obvious Christian elements (the brothers are devout catholics) some of the more subtle references lie in the characters. the brothers compare to James and John, the sons of Zebedee while their partner in crime, Rocco, is obviously the stubborn and hot-tempered Peter (even the choice of name... peter=rock, rocco...), even though he looked like the popular depiction of long-haired, bearded Jesus. very fitting allegory as James and John asked Jesus to rain fire and brimstone upon a city that rejected Jesus.

notes: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... willem dafoe is a little (very) disturbing. there are a few gay scenes that could have been omitted, but i suppose they were their to cement (bonk you on the head) the fact that he is a practicing homosexual into your mind. it certainly explains a lot of his 'displays'. i don't think i'll be able to watch spiderman the same again. this movie wasn't deep, but there was symbolism (symbology!!!harhar) all over the place. the guns appealed to my testosterone, much like the first matrix movie. 'aequitas' = justice; 'veritas' = truth.

rating: 4 out of 5