I highly recommend watching the documentary Overnight which chronicles the rise and fall of Boondock Saints writer/director Troy Duffy. That film and the circumstances behind the Boondock movies is far more interesting than either installment. Duffy was living the dream of every young hopeful trying to make it big in Hollywood. His first script ever was embroiled in a bidding war won by Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. Despite his lack of experience, Duffy was set to direct his screenplay for Boondock Saints. He was pimped out as the next Quentin Tarantino, his band (formed with his brother) was signed to a record deal, and Weinstein was even going to purchase the bar he worked at and allow Duffy to run it. Along the way, Duffy pissed it all away due to ego.
Duffy was eventually able to secure financing on his own to shoot Boondock where it was released in only five theaters in the entire U.S. for a week. Somehow, the movie became a huge hit on DVD, gaining a massive cult following. The film has made approximately $50 million in DVD revenue though Duffy hasn’t seen a single cent after signing over the rights as well as legal entanglements. Now, ten years after the original film, the long-in-development sequel has finally hit the big screen.
Boondock Saints starred Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus as Connor and Murphy McManus, two Irish-Catholic brothers in Boston who engage in a vigilante war against the mob. Since then, the McManus Brothers have been living a life of isolation in Ireland with their father (Billy Connolly), a deadly hitman nicknamed Il Duce. All Saints Day kicks off with the murder of a priest that is made to look like the Saints. The Brothers return to Boston to find the killer and waste more gangsters and scumbags. The Saints manage to pick up a new comic sidekick in Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.), a Mexican with a mullet and an overzealous desire to become a Saint. There’s also Julie Benz (sporting a silly Southern accent) as FBI Agent Eunice Bloom, a forensics expert and protégé to Willem Dafoe’s character from the first film. The sequel also explores the previously-unrevealed history of Papa McManus.
While All Saints Day looks more polished and slick than the original, Duffy has obviously learned nothing new during his ten year hiatus from filmmaking. There’s no visual flair or ingenuity to any sequence in the film. The characters are paper thin and the dialogue is atrociously bad. It’s the kind of stuff a 12-year old would write after seeing Reservoir Dogs for the first time. I don’t know what was more idiotic about the picture, dressing Julie Benz up as a cowgirl for a shootout or Peter Fonda's thankless cameo as, of all things, an Italian Mafioso. Worst of all, the end leaves everything wide open for a third movie. Please, no...
Rating: *
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