PCP on DVD - Boondock Saints II

NOTE - this was originally published by me on my friend's blog on 9/24/10.


Review: Boondock Saints II.  Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.

I really really wanted to like this film.  The first Boondock Saints is one of my favorite flicks.  It clocks in at # 4 on my favorite  guy movies list and it was a cult classic.  The sequel, a decade in the making, tries really hard to live up to its predecessor.  In fact, it tries way too hard.  And that is my chief problem with this film.  In an attempt to top the magic of the first film, everything in this film is trying as hard as possible to top the first film.  The whole time I’m watching this, I have a sensation that the actors and director are just forcing everything, and it pays off negatively.  Julie Benz costars as an FBI agent involved in the case, and her horrendously over the top awful southern drawl just sounds like nails on a chalkboard every time she opens her mouth.  She fills in for Willem Dafoe as the intelligent law officer involved in the case, and he was way better in the first film than she is in this one.  The action scenes are bigger, and the film has a higher body count, almost double of the first film, but they aren’t as good as they could be.  Director Troy Duffy is trying too hard to be John Woo, but he just can’t compare to the action legend.  The plot is largely strung together with baling wire, there’s not a lot of meat here to this story.  The acting is nothing to write home about either.  The only performance I liked was of Billy Connolly, aka Il Duce, who has some great moments in this film.  I do like how they explained how Il Duce came to become such a feared hitman, but that was the only highlight of the movie for me.  All in all, I was thoroughly disappointed in this movie, especially when compared to the original.