Here's what I learned while watching The Boondock Saints 2, the sequel to Troy Duffy's 1999 cult hit: Quentin Tarantino's got nothing to fear from this guy. No, seriously. I remember after all the pomp and circumstance following the original, how many were proclaiming Duffy to be the next QT. I never bought it then, and frankly I didn't really even see it. Sure, the two seem to revel in the amount of gratuitous violence they can spray across the screen, but Duffy's debut paled in every possible way imaginable to Tarantino's. The similarities are surface only.
After Duffy's extreme flame out, chronicled in the hilarious documentary "Overnight", the rumors continued to swirl about a Boondock revival. Well, ten years later we finally get it, and it's basically the same movie: same characters, same basic plot, same action set pieces. It does feature 100% more gun toting cowgirls than the last film, which I guess has to be considered a step in the right direction.
This time around the famed Irish vigilante brothers, Connor and Murphy McManus(Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) have been laying low for ten years on a little farm in their homeland alongside their dad, Poppa McManus(Billy Connelly). The setup's a little sweet for my tastes. No women within a country mile; herding goats; a little too touchy feely. Kinda weird.
When a murder is committed against a priest back home in Boston, set up to look like it was done by the saints, the two brothers leave Pa to tend the sheep while they head home to enact some vigilante justice.But first they stop to add a member to their crew, the uber violent but ultra sensitive Romeo(Cliffton Collins, Jr.). Romeo is the comedy jumpstart this movie sorely needed. One of my biggest gripes with the first film was that neither Flannery or Reedus stands out. Neither has an inch of the screen presence Collins brings to the table, even when he's basically humiliating himself every other scene.
What follows is a barrage of bullets and testosterone sprayed at nameless Boston thugs that might as well have "Cannon Fodder" written on their foreheads. The Saints are being tracked by agent Eunice Bloom(the lovely Juie Benz), a protege of former oddball agent Paul Smecker(Willem Dafoe). Bloom shares his genius level intellect and off kilter investigative technique, although I daresay she's a bit more....imaginative than her predecessor. In one memorable scene, she dons a cowgirl outfit and pretends to be shooting up the bad guys alongside the targets of her investigation. Even if she is a little annoying, at least her character has some energy.
The pace continues mostly at a breakneck speed, with brief interludes so the guys can down some whiskey and shoot a little pool, but there really isn't much else to it. In fact, I got the distinct impression that Duffy crammed in a 'B' plot involving Poppa McManus as a last ditch effort to add some meat to the rather barebones story. Then again, Duffy has already stated that the third Boondock Saints movie will deal with his rise to prominence, so maybe it was a force fed prelude of some sort.
I've always kinda watched the Boondock Saints in a separate place from others. It seems like a film you either downright love or outright despise. I consider myself somewhere in between. I'm sorta detatched from the whole religious Catholic angle that both films try to portray. It falls on deaf ears with me, especially here, where it's barely given a second thought. I never really was able to reconcile their murderous behavior with their supposed piety, but then maybe I'm thinking too hard about it.
If it sounds like I'm being overly negative, it's mostly out of disappointment. The film isn't bad. It's often very funny, and the action is constant even if it's repetitive. But I expected more growth out of Duffy as a director and writer, but what we got here is basically more of the same, which is an adequate action romp that will appease fans of the original but few else.
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