The Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day

The Boondock Saints II: All Saint’s Day (2009)
Apparition
Directed by Troy Duffy
Starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Julie Benz, Billy Connolly, Peter Fonda

Ten years after The Boondock Saints was released, and after years of lawsuits and delays, The Boondock Saints II: All Saint’s Day is here. Having a huge cult following for the first film, this sequel has some high expectations to live up to. Eight years after the vigilantes known as the “Saints” (Flanery and Reedus) disappeared from Boston, a mysterious assassin has framed the murder of a priest on them. Heading back to the United States, it is up to the “Saints” to find this assassin and rid Boston of evil once again.

The original Boondock Saints was not a masterpiece. It was a popcorn flick that featured some great action sequences and some witty, yet corny dialogue. It was very reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s work. All Saint’s Day is the very same rehash of the original. It is the same type of action, dialogue, and they both use the flashback method to show the “Saint’s” murders. Just like the original, the flashbacks can be effective, but are usually annoying and detract from the flow of the film.

All the same actors are back for this film, including a very surprise cameo from Willem Dafoe. There are some new faces this time around as well. Peter Fonda joins the cast as the head of the organization targeting the Irish brothers. He has little screentime, and his acting skills are wasted on such a small character. He poses no real threat to the “Saints” and leaves his gangsters to do the fighting. Another new face is Julie Benz who replaces Willem Dafoe’s character as Special Agent Eunice Bloom. She is working with the FBI to track down the vigilantes, but is secretly working with Boston police to help them escape. Benz is no Dafoe, which leaves her character lacking. She does add some witty dialogue to the film, which helps take away from the corniness of some of the other characters. In fact, most of the film contains some unnecessary, corny dialogue. This is a new trend in Hollywood, especially with the Transformers series, where the humor is not funny and completely unnecessary. It is important to have some humor to make it fun and not too serious, but there is a wrong time and place for such humor.

All Saint’s Day has mixed messages just like the original. There is a huge theme of responsibility in here, more so than the original. Both films show how flawed the justice system has become, but they never explore this theme in depth. It is only scratched at the surface, when if these themes had been explored more, then the overall film series would have been more well received. All Saint’s Day is a poor action film with some witty dialogue floating to the top in a bucket of corny situations and dialogue. Aside from a few strong performances, The Boondock Saints should have waited longer for a better follow-up, or just never had a lackluster sequel. But the ending does leave it open for a third part, so hopefully Troy Duffy can pull it together, but it probably will not happen.

Rating: D+


June 13, 2010