I was looking for something mindless to watch and saw that Boondock Saints was on Amazon Prime and decided "why the hell not." Now I don't really regret my decision to watch but I am disappointed. Is it a bad movie? Yeah. Is the the worst movie ever? No. Is it nearly two hours of wasted potential? Definitely.
That is what makes me so confused and disappointed in this movie. There are slivers of good ideas and interesting story. Willem Dafoe seems to be having the time of his life acting in it. The chemistry between Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery is pretty believable. The general idea could've been something it just isn't. A modern crusade against gangs, mobs, mafias, ect. Could be an interesting story to tell. The ball was just dropped then popped. I think if a better writer and director got ahold of the same basic idea and had most of the same cast something good could've been made. I'm not looking for Godfather or Goodfellas level storytelling but give me something so I'm not so confused and disappointed. I went in with no expectations and left with what-ifs.
My main gripes with this movie are not as many as a lot of people who critique it but I have a few. Like a lot of people I find Rocco pretty annoying but he's not more than plot item. Funny Man. Because everyone is laughing at you not with you. Why the fuck is Ron Jeremy here? How is the big bad such an incompetent group of Italian stereotypes? Not once did I really believe any of the gang shit going. Did the director see any mafia based stuff. Papa Joe felt like someone saw 30 seconds of Tony from the Sopranos and ran with it. Also he barely says a damn thing the entire movie. I do not believe this guy is the head of a major crime family at all. The pointless and tasteless racism and sexism is very just mind-numbing and painful to sit through. Racism could've been used as a plot device if they went with the Irish-American and Italian-American fighting that was very prominent in the mafia settings. Instead of slurs there could've been something compelling made out of it. I just see so many half ideas that could've been something.
Now the humor. Rocco isn't funny. The rule of thumb joke, I don't see why it's been praised by people. It's pretty dumb. To me all the humor in the movie came from Willem Dafoe. The walking oxymoron. The homophobic gay man. This insane, eccentric, eclectic. mad genius, who is just killing every scene he's in. I found myself doing 10 second skips a lot during the movie but when Dafoe was on screen I was dialed in. That investigation towards the end where he's tearing his clothes off, crawling in the dirt, screaming like a child was so hilarious to me. He delivers his lines perfectly in every scene. After watching it I feel like I understand his Green Goblin portrayal even more. I honestly think if the brothers took a back seat and this was a detective drama with Dafoe as the lead actor and all the Saint stuff being in flashbacks as Dafoe describes the crime scene similar to how it already is in the movie it would've been so much better. I don't need to follow Rocco fuck Rocco. I wanna watch Dafoe tear down detectives, describe a crime scene with almost prophetic power, and then decide that the Saints are in the right and help them towards the end. We can keep the idea that the Saints are "good guys" but now I just want Paul Smecker movie.
At the end of the day I think is a mid and a bit heavy handed. I'm all for over the top action but this felt like a Seagal movie that hired better actors.
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