‘Boondock Saints II’ a Sequel Worth Seeing this St. Patrick’s Day

I missed the release of The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day back in 2009. It was a busy year. I graduated from college. I moved twice. I almost lost my leg in a motorcycle accident, and the one that got away got away. But as someone who owns an authentic rosary from the films, the fact that I only just saw the sequel days ago is astonishing.

My two roommates and I once played The Boondock Saints on loop eight times in one day. For roughly 12 hours, it was the only thing on the screen in our house. We weren’t watching every minute of the movie for 12 hours, but simply hearing the movie put smiles on our faces while we did dishes or laundry or homework. And I’m not talking about the racially insensitive, homophobic, or sexist comments that dominate the dialogue. I’m talking about brothers with no idea what they’re doing arguing over the need for rope in committing mass murder, citing Charles Bronson movies as evidence of its value.

Now that you know this review of The Boondock Saints II is written by a Boondock Saints superfan, you understand why I’m recommending a film with just a 23 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score that isn’t much higher. And it isn’t because it’s St. Patrick’s Day.

Firstly, the original film only scored a 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, so critics didn’t give it rave reviews. But gratuitously violent action comedies aren’t often critically acclaimed, especially movies made by an asshole like Troy Duffy. Audiences, however, loved the original, as indicated by its 91 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. But All Saints Day would have been better received had it been released soon after the first film rather than a decade later.

The Boondock Saints hasn’t aged well. As I mentioned, the script is littered with ugly attempts at comedy based on stereotypes of all kinds. Abandoning that aspect of the original film entirely would have been jarring for fans of the franchise, and while the sequel relies on non-PC speech less often, the film is still offensive at times. That’s Troy Duffy being Troy Duffy. I imagine it took producers 10 years to convince Duffy to remove enough of the hateful things he wanted to say so the movie could be released with an R rating and make back its budget. It barely did, earning $10.6 million worldwide on an estimated $8 million budget. Its release was severely limited, which is probably why I missed it.

All that said, if you’re a fan of gratuitous violence, All Saints Day delivers. The Saints continue to survive despite terrible plans going terribly wrong. There are terrific stunts and excellent action sequences. The bickering and banter is back, and if you’re a fan of the original film, you’ll be happy to know the entire cast is also back. Even Rocco and the cat he accidentally kills in the first film make an appearance. The message that men have become soft and should aspire to being more like “The Duke,” John Wayne, probably appeals to an older generation, but The Saints and Troy Duffy are members of that older generation.

The Boondock Saints II preys on nostalgia like all sequels do, and it does so successfully. So if you have some time to kill this St. Patrick’s Day, kill it watching The Boondock Saints kill men worse than them. But don’t define your manhood based on this action movie like they define theirs based on old action movies. Don’t go looking for deep meanings in action movies. Just enjoy the action, and always remember to bring rope.