Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

We’ll unashamedly admit that the first movie was, by MovieHuman standards, good. Not just good; for males 18-25… pure film gold. You can harp on their faux philosophy and Tarantino-imitation all you want, but Boondock Saints I brought a lot of action and comedy to the table. The sequel still tried to bring the action (in an over-stylized, stale way) and the comedy (in an over-acted, under-written mess of poorly handled slop) but came up pretty short. Not like 4 and inches let’s get a measurement short. This was short by more than a few yards. The original set the bar high for 18-25 year old males. This one really tried to match its predecessor, but without Willem Dafoe it was weak. Newcomer Julie Benz is downright awful. She is also given poor lines to read, which is, unfortunately, a facet not unique to her character. Beantown comedian Bob Marley and his fellow gang of cops are also pretty poorly scripted. An extraneous new Saint, played by a decent Clifton Collins Jr., was just an inch over-the-top. The film simply tried too hard.

So why a 2.5? Well, after about an hour of slosh, from estimated minute 10 to minute 70, things picked up a little. The lines didn’t get much better, but Reedus and Flannery, the two stars, offered a funny bit or two, and after a good old fight scene, Troy Duffy’s story-forging creativity showed itself for the briefest of moments in a . Honestly, the plot itself, after a long time floundering in setup, wasn’t too bad. It  even bordered on earning an “Ok, I can see this” head nod. So we’ll give it the “fair” rating of a 2.5 for the redeeming scenes of bullets flying and the occasional but respectable wise-crack that littered a battlefield of failed jokes and attempts at nostalgia for film 1. It is too bad that Dafoe wasn’t around to salvage Julie Benz’s character, because the saintly motif and the storyline remained at least moderately compelling. But without Special Agent Smecker, the Saints probably should have thought twice about coming back.