The Boondock Saints II: All Saint’s Day
Directed by Troy Duffy
Runtime: 117 min.
“Pulp Fiction with soul,” was what Boston-born, indie-hack-that-could Troy Duffy’s first screenplay, The Boondock Saints, was crassly dubbed by Hollywood insiders. Duffy, more memorable for the story of his rise and meteoric fall from prominence, is not really interested in the kind of misappropriated nostalgia from which Quentin Tarantino has made a career. Like its predecessor, which found a huge cult following on DVD, Boondock Saints II: All Saint’s Days is much more proud of its pseudo-religious self-righteousness and strained pub humor. This time, however, Duffy offers his small but devoted fanbase an equally meaningless sheen of progressivism.
This time, Connor and Murphy McManus (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus), the film's two murderous Irish-Catholic vigilantes, return to killing bad men with the help of Romeo, their rat-tail-clad Mexican lackey (Clifton Collins Jr.). They tolerate Romeo, but the Chinese, the gays and especially the Italians are all not worth the two plugged pennies they leave as their calling card. The boys are back, all right.
Connor, Murphy and their affectionately dubbed “greasy spic” kill wops with the help of Special Agent Bloom (Julie Benz), who looks as sexy in her black-and-red heels as Willem Dafoe did in drag in the original Boondock Saints (more morbid than milfy). Together, they aim to settle a score that goes back to the past of the “Saints”’ father (Billy Connolly), who made the mistake of trusting an Eye-talian (Peter Fonda, no less). But seriously, in case you missed the part where Murphy says—in Spanish no less—that Romeo is “with us,” never fear: beaners are all right in the boys’ book.
Both of Duffy’s entries into his cult franchise are uniquely uninspired, owing to his inability to discern good, blue-collar humor from the strictly scatological (that love of the sound of his own dialogue may be the only real similarity he shares with QT). Striking fear into the hearts of goombahs by making them shit their European-cut speedos, the “Saints” are about as funny as that drunk guy in your subway train late at night that heckles anybody that crosses his comically inept path.
Still, as troubling as its utter want of intentional humor is, the fact remains that The Boondock Saints movies pride themselves on the way they brainlessly grope at the cross to supply questionable ethical vindication. The “Saints” don’t kill people, they kill cannoli-eating scumbags that bonk each other in the mouth with cured meat. There’s a good reason why it’s taken Duffy this long to secure funds for a sequel to his D.O.A. meal-ticket: It was never funny in the first place.
