Movie Review - The Boondock Saints

The Boondock Saints

Are the ‘Saints’ doing the correct thing?? Well, no comments.

What is the story about? Well, disintegrate some murders which look like gang wars but actually are committed by fraternal twins who are just following ‘God’s verdict’, line it up with a super intelligent FBI detective who cracks the complex looking cases like a second grade puzzle, mix them with some good direction and put good action and comic sequences as icing, you have got ‘The Boondock Saints’. The director cum writer Troy Duffy is brilliant in his first attempt at movie making. The movie has the touch of Tarantino and Christopher Nolan when it comes to disordered storytelling and comes close to Tarantino and Guy Ritchie when mixing that ‘comedy during crime’ type of comic sequences in his movie. Consequence, you get the masterpiece Boondock Saints. Be it the action sequences or the comedy scenes or the dialogues, Duffy manages to excel in all in his first and only movie till date. And what does he do with fraternal brothers played by Sean Flanery and Norman Reedus, Willem Dafoe and David Rocco? He pulls out the best of the acting out of them. Dafoe is absolutely brilliant in his portrayal of a brilliant investigator with a rather unique sexuality. He fires in all cylinders in playing this role. Rocco looks natural in his role of an immature imbecilic criminal. And the brothers Flanery and Reedus pull out a great chemistry between them as fraternity brothers, without which the movie would have lost its charm.

Flanery and Reedus are forced to murder two ‘soldiers’ from the Russian mafia in self defense. The neighborhood and media depicts them as ‘Saints’ for murdering the bad guys and eventually they are set free without any charge. They get the verdict of God in their dreams to go ahead with the ‘cleaning’ job. Their friend Rocco joins in and they start planning and executing the jobs. The plot is thick with new ideas to keep you involved in the movie. The murder sequences at times are funny and the way in which detective Dafoe solves them are gratifying. The way the brothers pray before executing the ‘evil’ and then placing the coins on their eyelids make them antiheroes; audience like them. They show a good mix and match of young lads trying to make world a safer place. Many sequences in the movie are genuine and good dialogues make each of them even more pleasurable. The movie has been picturised in gloriously and each frame looks good on the screen. The movie might not have been a big success at the box office but has become a cult movie with its take on ‘cleaning’ the society to make it a better place for living. The ending of the movie could not have been better. A short documentary showing people’s response when asked what they think about the ‘Saints’ is just a brilliant way to end the movie. A highly recommended movie.
My Rating: 8.75/10.00