Eye Candy #171 - "Boondock Saints"

Boondock Saints: We always hear about “chick flicks”, well finally I can point to a definitive example of a “guy flick”. This is the story of two quasi-religious Irish-American brothers living in squalor in Boston, who take it upon themselves to become vigilantes, wiping out various factions of the mob. Sean Patrick Flannery (who doesn’t get nearly enough work) and Norman Reedus play the two brothers Conor and Murphy McManus. Orphans, they also happen to be highly intelligent and speak several languages fluently including Latin. After killing their first mobster (by dropping a toilet on him), they decide to go after the rest, ambushing the crooks, buying guns from the local IRA faction (and arguing about whether or not Charlie Bronson would use rope), saying prayers in front of the mobsters before they kill them, etc. You know, doing what vigilantes do. Their exploits draw the attention of both the numbskull local police and a weirder-than-weird FBI agent (played with much gusto by Willem Dafoe, in arguably one of his strangest roles ever), who may or may not be gay and likes to cross-dress. Also, the mobsters hired multiple assassins, including the semi-mythical Il Duce (Billy Connolly), and you have a recipe for several (and in some cases, inventive) gunfights. Brutal, violent, but with a great, great sense of humor, this film is an over-looked (and unfairly labeled “over-rated”) gem from a one-time-one-time-only director Troy Duffy, who burned so many bridges in the process of making the film, you would think he was a Nazi fleeing the Allied invasion through Holland (there is a documentary about Duffy called “Overnight”). But I’ll tell you right now – I don’t think most women will enjoy this one. But Woodchuck still sez, “Check it out.”