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 - not verydon't care for the movie. i've had it for months and still haven't seen the whole thing. ho hum booooring. Rating:  - Stupidest movie ever made/painfully bad/mentally challengedPeople call this movie a "cult favorite." That is a completely appropriate term because one really needs to be a half-lobotomized member of a cult in order to find this movie watchable. After all, this movie was only shown in 5 theaters and failed miserably after a week. The only reason it has had some success on DVD was because Blockbuster Video was conned into buying thousands of copies and had to promote it heavily as a "Blockbuster Exclusive" in order to recoup their losses. Like cult members, enough of the public obeyed the video store's directive, and Boondock Saints found a loyal audience among college students who find it strangely entertaining when they're high. This movie is bad...really, really bad. It defines bad. It's not even bad in a funny way, like a cheesy foreign action flick or Mystery Science Theatre 3000 selection. It's just plain unbearable. In every conceivable way it is a juvenile, amateurish, and boring failure of a movie that seems like it was written and produced by a 13 year old simpleton. The dialogue is spectacularly awful. At least 40% of it doesn't even make coherent sense in the English language, which makes me think that much of the script was written by a committee of Mexican day laborers. The other half consists of cliched action movie quips that people wouldn't actually say in real life. Maybe that's why the acting was so terrible; I think the actors obviously realized what garbage they were given to work with, so they purposely recited their lines in a very artificial, sing-songy manner, so as to convey a tacit message to the audience, like American POWs in enemy propaganda films: "I know this movie is trash, I know this dialogue is an embarrassment to you and me, but the contracts have already been signed and I'm legally obligated to repeat the words they give me to say. However, I want you to know that my spirit hasn't been broken by my captors, so I'm going to read my lines with all the disrespect and mockery they deserve." Someone must have had incriminating photos of William Dafoe to have coerced him into appearing in such a disaster (as a gay, cross-dressing FBI agent). The plot is as inane as all the other elements in Boondock Saints. Two seemingly ultra-pious Irish Catholics (who also associate with mobsters, blaspheme, kill and pull out guns in a Confessional) suddenly decide to start killing evil men. And that is the entirety of the plot, except for an idiotic revelation that the homicidal hit man trying to kill them is actually their father. Character development is non existent; everything about these people is one-dimensional and unmemorable. They are essentially video game characters. Everyone's motivation is either unexplained or nonsensical, and so much of this story is just riddled with holes, non-sequiturs and plain imbecility. One critic said that this movie was all about style over substance. I agree that there is no substance here, but I also don't see any style, which even a one-note hack like Tarantino has. Stylistically, this is the equivalent of a man in a brown suit with a green tie and a bad comb over. You know he'd like to be thought of as hip, but he's just not succeeding. This may very well be the worst movie ever made. Don't say you haven't been warned. Rating: - Better OptionIf you would like to see a movie that came out 10 years earlier with a better script and a tremendous cast check out State of Grace starring Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright, John Tuturro, John C. Reilly and Joe Viterelli, about the Irish mob. Boondock Saints was really hyped and when I saw it I could see how guys would like the shoot them up stuff and a few twists but it's overdone and not that original either. I think it just gained cult status probably from a younger teenage type crowd. Rating:  - Awesome MovieDespite Troy Duffy's blinded belief he would be widely accepted in the entertainment industry after spurnning Harvey Weinstein doesnt alter the fact thae the man is fairly brilliant. Ok, not the most original style movie as far as heavily borrowing from Tarantinos handbook but still the type of movie you want to watch time and time again. I'm sort of glad Duffy's firt choices as far as casting went didnt work out because the medly of actors of all calibers in this film makes it even richer. Had Kenneth Branagh and Robert Deniro been in it as originally hoped by Duffy it still would have been good, but not the same by a fair margin. This movie is fun and oozes cult status and it saddens me that we will probably not see another screenplay from this bright but troubled young man. Anyone who has seen the documentry about the making of this film "Overnight" can see very clearly that Mr. Duffy although tough enough to take on the industry wolverines unfortunately counted his chickens before he even had the eggs and didnt know when to curb himself. Everyone in Hollywood has to take some bull crap sometimes and his refusal to do so has cost him what could have been a brilliant career Rating: - a few thoughts...When Tarantino made Pulp Fiction he successfully created a movie both full of style and substance. While many people focus solely on Pulp Fiction's dialog and over-the-top violence, some people did take note of the true cleverness of Tarantino's film. Pulp Fiction is a movie about set-ups. Everything that happens in the first half of the movie - Vincent and Jules discussion about the foot massage, Vincent and Mia's conversation at the diner - is done to set up one griping scene; the shot of adrenaline to Mia's heart. Ask anyone who has seen Pulp Fiction about their favorite scene, and odds are they will talk about the adrenaline to the heart, the gimp, or the accidental death in the back of the car. Pulp Fiction's dialog is cleverly executed to build up suspense and add insight and humor into 3 specific scenes creating a far more clever movie than you might perceive if you just watched it once. Repeat viewing reveal just how clever Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is, and it shows how there really were not any wasted lines of dialog. Pulp Fiction is a witty and comedic without being too serious. It has some subtle insights, such as loyalty amongst gangsters and Jules spiritual epiphany. And, of course, cinema buffs will happily point out all the different types of angles and shots Tarantino used throughout the movie, and why they helped contribute to the film. All in all, what Taranatino accomplished with one movie was truly remarkable, and much more than the average viewer might pick up on with just one viewing or without reading some professional insight from a seasoned critic or cinema buff. Given all the comparisons between Tarantino and Duffy's Boondock Saints, I was expecting a substantial and complex film. Unfortunately, Boondock Saints is everything but. The premise of Boondock Saints is two brothers have a spirtual epiphany and decide they need to take justice into their own hands through excess and reckless vengeance. They hook up with "funny man" Rocco, who knows all the important bad guys they can kill. And, in quite possibly the most laugh-at-able roll ever, William Dafoe plays the detective hot on the tail of our protagonists. Unfortunately, I had a hard time liking the protagonists, especially Rocco. His character is simply too destructive and violent to have any empathy or sympathy for. And I really like William Dafoe (he did an excellent job as the Green Goblin), but Dafoe's roll is so exaggerated it is impossible to not laugh at his character or believe that this guy could be a real-life detective. There's nothing to enjoy about the Boondock Saint's dialog, and unlike Pulp Fiction, it is not put to good use. In one scene, "funny man" Rocco has to tell a joke. I felt like this scene was injected into this movie for the sole purpose of throwing the N-word around. There's nothing wrong with using the N-word, it has appeared in movies countless times without bothering me, but Duffy's effort is contrived and irrelevant to the movie's plot. In one scene, our three protagonists are sitting at the table, and one of their guns goes off killing the cat, effectively painting the wall red in cat innards. This scene is strikingly similar to the Bonnie Situation in Pulp Fiction, only far less humourous or entertaining. I do not know if Duffy intentionally lifted that scene from Pulp Fiction or not, but there is no denying the similarity. Then there is the movie's oh so empty plot, which attempts to convety this theme that justice in the hands of those who have been spiritually guided is fun and exciting. I really don't feel that I need to elaborate as other reviewers have already pointed out the flaws in this movie's theme. But, to contribute; justice through vengence is a flawed idea; this is especially true when our main characters (who we are supposed to relate to) are commiting these violent acts of vengence without any constraint or thought. Our heroes never experience any turmoil or confliction when they extract vengence in the most violent way possible. This is not a heroic act, not when zero consideration is given to the people they are killing. But who cares right? Why should we give thought to this subject matter when Duffy has created a stylistic movie that makes recklessly killing bad guys look super cool and easy. For me, as a casual fan of Tarantino, I feel compelled to defend movie's like Pulp Fiction. The stylistic similarities between Duffy and Tarantino are only skin deep, if that. So, by comparing the works of Tarantino to fluff like Boondock Saints, people are really doing a disservice for Tarantino. This needs to stop. Duffy's film is a wannabe Tarantino film, it strives to achieve a balance in style and depth, but fails at both. Boondock Saints might not have been such an abysmal affair for me had I not watched it after hearing all the comparisons to Tarantino. Unforunately, college hipsters have clung to this film elevating it to "cult status" (what does that mean? if millions of collge kids with no background in cinema love a film does that make it a cult film?). The truth is, Boondock Saints is an overrated, meaningless film, with amateur dialog and cinematography. It's cool to like this film beecause it is stylistic and has "depth," but anyone who gives this film a little through will quickly realize just how little this film has to offer. What is truly amazing is that so many people love this film. Why, we may never know.
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