Three things right off the bat:
Numero One-o; The following “review” is of a film rated “R”, which means it ain’t fer kids. I say that cause I have been most thoroughly informed of the fact that this here blog is read by da kids every now and then. So while this blog should be fine for anyone to read, which is questionable, the movie I am reviewing “Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day” is probably not.
Number Two-o; I am not a movie reviewer guy. So if I fail to note somethin’ important to you or whatever, come to Boodachitaville and sue me.
Numer Three-o;…. I can’t remember number three. Took me too long to write the warning to the kids.
Now a review:
I liked it.
Not a bad movie. I mean it wasn’t a good movie, the editing made sure of that, but, hey!, there is more to life then technical wizardry. And even though there were some jumps and cuts that I still don’t get and everyone pretty much knew what was going to happen from the get-go it was a pretty fun little movie.
Sure, basically “Boondock Saints 2″ is like every sequel, the original movie warmed over with a few new characters added in so you can tell the difference. It is what American franchise-film audiences want and what studio execs are ready to pump out. But really, I figure once you see one Twin-Irish-Brothers-go-on-a-Divinely-inspired,-criminal-targeting-killing-spree you’ve seen them all. So it doesn’t really matter what happens in the movie, you know what you are going to see from the second you buy your ticket. I mean you don’t buy a ticket to a kung fu movie and see subtle philosophical insight into the human condition instead of seeing dudes punching each other and walk out of the theater happy do you? Nope. What matters is how you get to seeing what you expected to see.
Luckily “Boondock Saints 2″ does not let you down in the expectation area. There are plenty of criminals getting shot up in slow motion. Plenty. Lots of bullets and lots of slow motion. And you even get plenty of jokes about being Irish or which ever ethnic group happens to be on the screen at the moment just like you wanted when you went to buy a ticket to a movie about Irish guys.
Where this movie delivers the biggest to its expectant audience is in its total lack of moral ambiguity.
In this movie the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are getting shot at. It just makes me want to shout, “YAY!!! Hip hip hooray!” Everybody who sees this movie can agree that the Saints are gunning for the bad guys. Now they may also think that the heroes are also bad guys, but that would only be if they could not overlook the fact that the heroes of the movie are breaking the law, a la Robin Hood, for a good cause. So my mom, who would have hated this movie already from the blood going “gooooooooooooooosh” out of some fat dudes chest, would really hate it now.
But luckily for the audience with expectations the movie does not dwell on the moral questions raised by the slaughter of mafiosi or whether or not those who kill killers are just as wicked as their victims. Even the moments of deciding whether or not to help the Saints that were found in the first movie are gone (much to the audiences benefit.) In this movie bad guys get shot at and good guys pull the trigger.
And that is a good thing because if there is anything Americans love to see it has to be recognizable bad guys. I don’t really know why, but I guess (what with this being my blog and all) I can take a swing at it. I guess it has to be because we don’t like to think stuff or people are bad but we know that there are bad people out there. Maybe we are optimists. Maybe we just don’t want people pointing out all of the things we do that are bad. I think a lot of times we just don’t want to have to say that somebody is a bad guy because they are so likeable or because it would be hard to oppose them (looking at you Mr. President) and we don’t want to have to admit we made a mistake or feel like cowards. But, like everyone, we do like to see bad guys eat it hard. And that means we need to be able to recognize the bad guy.
So we use shorthand, like how in Boondock Saints nearly all the bad guys are “mafia” and speak in Italian accents and say racist things. They also like opera and classical music and nice suits. I am just happy that they avoided the most recently popular shorthand to show American audiences that someone is bad and never had an admitted child abuser as a bad guy. (Those were showing up everywhere for a while! Are those really the only bad guys we can all agree on?!)
The point of this movie is really pretty simple and pretty agreeable to most people (so long as overlook the murdering thing) and that is that people should stand up and do something if they see something is wrong. Which is a pretty good little message.
The thing is in real life there is no short hand to tell who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.
Unless they are wearing heelies and edit your blog.
Then they suck and must die.

-Bob

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