Boondock Saints
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Troy Duffy
Starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Willem Dafoe, Billy Connolly
Fox Home Entertainment
Release date: February 10, 2009

In Boondock Saints the wrath of God isn’t eligible to a society filled with thieves, mobsters, and pimps. To them the afterlife is nonexistent and they live as though they’re not afraid of what awaits them when they die. But hold it right there. Why wait until we are all perished to be judged when we can be judged right here and now? As if any God or idolatry figure didn’t instill fear in us, common man wants to take on that challenge. The two brothers in Boondock Saints colonize before a society a set of rules that should help contain the urges of sin. These ideas placed before all are thrust upon the people in a scary, authoritative manner. To sum it up — these brothers take the responsibility of replicating God on Earth. Introducing this controversial topic and then not really spotlighting it compassionately because of the obsession with the actually killings themselves, Boondock Saints loses some of its power that could have struck a strong and mighty chord.

When we think of ordinary men wanting to rid the world of scum, the first name that enters our minds is Travis Bickel from Taxi Driver. We remember that insane man for stating: “All the animals come out at night — whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.” The ominous tones in that quote when Travis uttered it sent shivers down viewer’s spines. The McManus brothers, Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus), aren’t in any way symbolic with the character that Travis is. Connor and Murphy are church-going fanatics and deeply seeped in their Irish traditions. After they killed some Russian mobsters, their ideas of ridding other scum in the city become stronger and stronger all the while their targets become more prominent figures in the mafia world.

A heavy dose of sentimentality is showered over the McManus brothers to justify that what they’re doing is correct and beneficial for society. That necessarily wasn’t the case in Taxi Driver when we were told to accept what Travis was doing was because he was insane. He didn’t have to have his locale bar being taken over by Russian mobsters or be shown playing with kids in a hospital while nuns pass. That ploy that first time director Troy Duffy tries to implement takes away from the McManus brothers because when he wants to try to show them as elaborate characters he actually subdues them as a kind of sideshow.

Essentially Boondock Saints is a vigilante picture that has to achieve ways of standing out amidst a bunch of other films tackling the same topic. Director Troy Duffy has an innovative
way of thinking as he cracks down on the traditional way of filmmaking and erects a new kind that keeps an old plot fresh and consistent such as slow-motion cinematography, a soundtrack of operatic music, and a fundamentally new way to explain how an actually killing took place. To raise the film above the mediocre vigilante films, Duffy writes into the script an abnormal type of FBI agent who has an equally abnormal way of solving cases. His name is Paul Smecker and is played to perfection by Willem Dafoe. When he begins to find mob-related victims turn up on every corner of Boston thanks to the McManus brothers, Smecker finds it strangely satisfying that these scum-buckets are finally meeting their maker.

Boondock Saints has had its fair share of controversy and its problematic past of getting distribution in the States. But Duffy, surprisingly, is able to spin a new yarn in the vigilante genre as he, like Tarantino, shows talent on jerking the genre he is working in around a bit and establishing his own thoughts within the genre. Boondock Saints shows evident signs that something great is bound to be unleashed but it constantly gets bogged down because of the obsession of blood and pain.

Special Features

Picture: Amazingly Boondock Saints, being the cult and direct-to-DVD movie it is, has a picture quality on Blu-ray that is strongly bright and very crisp. All the previous production delays and quarrels don’t rub off on the film’s visuals, which were put into the film to impress its viewers with its high-octane style, and the transfer balances everything well creating a clean environment for our film. Blu-Ray treats this film as if its gold, delivering to it a transfer that’s first rate as far as action movies go and is far superior to previous editions of the film on DVD. I could only note a few minor grainy scenes occurring during night scenes, other than that this Blu-Ray can be loved by extreme fans of the film.

Audio Commentaries: HD – First commentary is with director Troy Duffy and the other being with actor Billy Connolly.

Deleted Scenes/Outtakes: Standard Definition (17 minutes) – Seven deleted scenes that offer no new revelation into the film. The outtake, which is two minutes, does serve as a crowd pleaser. Everything in this feature is in very poor visual condition, shot early during production.

Printable Script: Boondock Saint‘s original script in its entirety is viewable on the television screen, ready to print.

Theatrical Trailer: Standard Definition – The original theatrical trailer.

Movie- *** out of ****
HD Picture- ***1/2 out of ****
Special Features- ** out of ****