By Kim Scroggins
It’s been ten years sine we were first introduced to Troy Duffy’s dynamic duo of the McManus brothers, also known as The Boondock Saints. Once the long anticipated sequel All Saints Day premiered in select theatres this week, it was met with more hype and fan support than even Duffy expected.
Duffy follows much of the same format as the first film in All Saints Day. It carries much of the comic strip theme (whether that was intentional or not) jumping from the storyline to flashbacks sequences on more than one occasion. Though these scene jumps by no means effect the quality of the film, some may leave you lost for a moment asking, where the hell did that come from? Or, was that really necessary? But in the end, they leave you thinking and I believe that that is Duffy’s point. To fully understand a Troy Duffy film, you need to have a bit of an imagination or else some parts of the movie just won’t make sense.
All Saints Day is missing a couple of the characters that had a strong impact in the first film and their presence is greatly missed by serious Boondock followers. Their replacements don’t quite meet the expectations avid fans may have. Characters like Eunice manage to get under your skin. Maybe it’s the bad acting or the high heels that make her seem out of place in this sort of movie, though you can tell that she was an honest attempt at being a successful fill in for Willem Dafoe’s rather unforgettable character. At the same time, these characters essential to the film and without them it wouldn’t have had the same effect, though Duffy manages to throw in a few surprises here and there.
This is the type of sequel that can be seen without needing to see the first movie to understand what is going on. However, it may not be a bad idea to see the first movie anyway, since Duffy sneaks in small excerpts from the first movie for a laugh or two. If you’re not familiar with the first movie, you won’t appreciate them as much as the guy chuckling next to you.
I haven’t met one person who has seen the original Boondock Saints and disliked it. That being said, I am not going to sit here and tell you why you should go see it or why you should like or dislike it. That responsibility is all yours.
And not to be a spoiler or anything, but the ending leaves a pretty strong hint that a third movie could be in the making. Let’s just hope they don’t take another ten years to make it, because I don’t think I could handle the wait.
