Remembering The Boondock Saints

The way The Boondock Saints survived a certain death, that for most films, would have buried it amongst the incoming heap of constant indie productions, proves it’s no ordinary film. In fact, and maybe more intriguing and important that the actual film, is the story behind the film. A young up-and-coming director named Troy Duffy wrote a script that was quickly shopped and put into production, only for numerous setbacks, confrontations with studio executives, and a notorious documentary that became more popular than the film, could have and perhaps should have buried the film. Alas, like the MacManus Brothers themselves, maybe some divine stepped in.

Killer Film looks back at the cult hit with the cast in Remembering The Boondock Saints.

When I raise my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment, I will take vengeance upon mine enemies, and I will repay those who haze me. Oh, Lord, raise me to Thy right hand and count me among Thy saints.

Troy Duffy, the writer and director of The Boondock Saints explains the origins of the project: “I was in Los Angeles then, where I live now, and I guess that’s what you do there, people just write scripts. I have always been an avid reader, but writing a book seemed almost like standing on the shoulders of giants, from the authors I loved are titans, you know? I didn’t know if I was good enough to do that, and I still don’t know to this day. But for a script, I had a much more direct and easier way to get this story out. It was something that I wanted to go see in a movie theater, so I wrote this script of stuff I wanted to see. I figured there was somebody else out there like me.”

Before the film would get seen by an audience, casting was a top priority in finding the right actors for the right roles. Norman Reedus was cast as Murphy MacManus, one of the Saints, but it wasn’t easy for him to get the role. “I got the script, and I was going to do this film for Miramax called Senseless, and I was living in LA at the time, so I came to New York City to meet with the producers for Senseless, and they asked me what I wanted to do since it was obvious I really didn’t want to be in the film,” explains Norman. “I said, ‘I’ll do Senseless, if I can do Boondock Saints‘ since I just read the script and thought it was awesome. Troy just met me, and I wasn’t a name whatsoever, but it was just for him, matching up who will play who. Troy wanted me to do it, and he just had to fight for me since all I really have done all that much. He ended up getting me the part, and I’ll be eternally grateful.”

Another key member to the cast was Sean Patrick Flanery as the other MacManus Brother, Connor. Once cast, the Saints were locked. But the film is anchored by the supporting players, an assemble cast lead by Willem Dafoe. “Willem’s name came up and I said that would be awesome. He’s one of the greatest character actors alive, to me. Whatever you give this guy to do, he puts himself in that skin. He’s done stuff of legend, man,” praises Troy Duffy. “To get Willem added legitimacy to the cast. Yes, I got a bunch of new faces here but he’s a marquee player. Willem isn’t a Tom Cruise or anything, but if polled the public, they’d say he’s an actor’s actor. That’s what got me interesting in him. I flew to New York to meet him, and man, after sitting down to talk with him about the role, trying to throw a few curve balls at him, trying to define what he’ll do with this role as an actor, I just realized I should shut up. He called up his agent right there, and told him he’ll do it with this first time director. That’s the type of fellow he is.”

Troy isn’t the only one to champion working with Willem Dafoe. Actor Bob Marley, who plays the bubbling cop Detective Greenly says of Dafoe: “I saw him in one scene nine different times, while I was just doing it the same way. He had something different each time, making me think either he’s really incredible or I’m horrible. I know I’m not horrible, so it has to be that he’s just that good.” Brian Mahoney was cast as Detective Duffy, who along with Marley’s Detective Greenly, got some flack from Dafoe’s FBI Special Agent Smecker, but echoes the praise. “I was surprised how much of a gentleman he is. He’s this iconic character actor and we thought he’d be crazy, but the thing is with bigger stars is they shoot their coverage first, then they film to the other guys, releasing the lead actors to go home for the day. Dafoe stayed. He had none of that. He stayed so we could work opposite of him, as most of the time, you work against a script supervisor or something. He was great to work with.”

One last key member needed to get cast to get the film going, and that last role was “Funny Man” Rocco, played by David Della Rocco. “As he was writing the script, I was doing a play with very long hair, and he just envisioned a sidekick, and he was going to use my name for the character he said, and he just started to create this sidekick for the brothers. Little by little, he auditioned me, and found me that way,” explains Rocco.

Overnight

After a few months of shooting, the film was complete. During that time, Troy Duffy allowed some old friends to film a documentary about the production of the film, along with showcasing Duffy’s first directorial effort. Notoriously, things got sour between the camps, and the world would come to know about the clashes Duffy had with producers, including the Weinstiens, the on-set fits, and the constant rumors of a first time director spoiled by Hollywood’s gift. For all of the rumors of what people might think about Duffy and the film’s production, the cast along with Duffy finally tell their side of the story.

Norman Reedus on Overnight: “Troy is a very good quarterback. You always need a good quarterback. As for that documentary, those were his friends; he had a movie getting made, a record deal, on the covers of all of these magazines, and with that comes with all these ‘hanger-on’s’. Even though he can be this huge bad ass, he’s also a very sweet, giving guy. I can see why he had these people hanging onto him. They needed more money, and he had it all into the film, none to give them. A fight ensured, and screwed him in an unflattering way. I’m not in that film, only in the background. I just had a bad feeling about them, and kept putting off their interview requests. I never allowed them to interview me. He’s not like that in how that doc portrayed him. You got to understand when you’re making a film, there’s all these calls and expectations, and he was trying to organize it all. Everyone was looking at him for answers, and I could see why he would flip out. I don’t think he ever attacked them for making that documentary. A lot of people would.”

Bob Marley on Overnight: “Regarding directors in Hollywood in general, they’ve been know to be hard and eccentric or whatever, but from what I know of Troy, he’s a great guy. He and I are from New England, so maybe we just understand each other better because there’s no B.S. He’s a great guy, and as far as being a director, he’s ten steps ahead of every thought you could have. He’s smart and puts out a great product, and really, really cares about the fans. If anything, that documentary helped us. Any of the real fans who have seen Overnight tell me two things, one they really don’t believe all of it, and two the movie is bad ass, and if the director is a bad ass, we don’t see the problem, it’s a perfect fit.”

David Della Rocco on Overnight: “That documentary showed what Troy learned, and not have friends follow you around with a camera. If I followed you around for two or three years and for some reason I didn’t like you anymore, I could eliminate all of the good things and just show the bad. When they showed me an interview with Willem Dafoe, he was talking about Troy, and in this interview, Willem was saying the nicest things in the world about Troy. But when they cut for the documentary, they had Willem “I just told him to shut up”, and they went that route. They cut it a certain way to sell it and get their name out. They felt the filming wasn’t going good, so they focused on what they thought was Troy failing the film.

I don’t think there was any tension due to the documentary Overnight on the first or second film, and it really was just Troy getting and there’s no other word for it: ‘f*cked’.”

Troy Duffy on Overnight:  “The whole documentary is a misconception. It’s an disingenuous smear job by two opportunistic assholes. If I may, with you or with somebody, just sit down and go through Overnight scene-by-scene. Boondock Saints didn’t get a theatrical release, they were hoping to bootstrap it to Boondock and said that their documentary was worthless now.” (Look for more on Duffy’s thoughts on the documentary in my exclusive candid interview with him.)

All Saint’s Day

Through the home media market, DVD became a powerful new market, which at the format’s newly mainstream status, helped the film gain a huge cult following. Where most sequels are made for pure cash-grab reasons, Duffy immediately planned for a sequel. The drawback was a class action lawsuit to get the rights back. Once cleared up, they got the call. “We’ve been gung-ho since the first one was out to do a sequel,” says Norman Reddus. “But then there were all of these lawsuits, getting rights back, Troy was in litigation with everybody. It was our movie, and everyone else was making a ton of money off of it. We basically got robbed, so we couldn’t do anything until we got the rights back. I think the story goes Sony bought the rights like right away. Everyone single person in the first came back with a single phone call.”

“We all knew once we started banking on home video, that we will do a sequel, and finally the studio said we know we’ll make money off of it, so they followed the gravy train,” tells Bob Marley. “We all remained friends since 1999, and when Troy called, he’s said we’re doing it, and I said yes, great. I think I look the same, so let’s do it.”

Brian Mahoney was just as eager. “When that lawsuit was cleared up, I got the script and I was thrilled. I think on page 68 I was doing a mission with the Brothers!”

The sequel added some new members, as Rocco’s status as the Brothers sidekick was replaced with an “honorary Irishman” known as Clifton Collins, Jr. “He’s such a fine actor. I mean, they’re two different characters and if you’re a Boondock Saints fan, they are both memorable, and by having him on board was really special. He was really nice and a fine person. I thought he did a great job,” praises David Della Rocco. Norman Reedus praises Clifton as well: “We love Clifton. We all were friends well before we made Boondocks. To have Clif on board was great, very into his character, and if he didn’t trust Troy, it would have been very hard. Being goofy is hard, and he was struggling with that. It’s part of the movie, and I think he did really well.”

“First of all, she’s a lot better looking than Dafoe!” laughs Brian Mahoney on the addition of Julie Benz (Angel, Saw V) to the cast as FBI Special Agent Eunice Bloom. “She has huge jumbo elephant balls and owned her role. She’s sexy, and super smart. It was a tough role to play and she did a great job,” explains Norman Reedus. Troy Duffy explodes with praise on Julie: “Joining this boys club is a tough thing, but I wasn’t like (in a sweet sounding voice) ‘Oh, everybody! Treat my petite fucking flower with respect!’ I didn’t try to do that, since I knew she had to earn her respect amongst the boys By the end of it, these guys were pulling chairs out for her. (laughs) I fell in love with her and I knew the fan base would too.”

And whosoever shed man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made He man.

After a failed Sundance appearance, where the film was pulled due to the Columbine school shootings that year, no theatrical release, the film stormed onto DVD awaiting the direct-to-video death many films with that pattern face. But this time, The Boondock Saints faced a rebirth, a resurrection, that only increased as people kept buying the DVD as well as, talking about the film. So, can the cast explain why the film, ten years later, is popular today? “I think the biggest misconception is that he’s a ball-breaker, a hard ass, and he’s not difficult to work with. As an actor, working with all these people, and if they don’t know what to do is way for frustrating, so they think he’s difficult to work with. He’s not. Look at Boondock Saints II, he made that for the fans and not for everyone else,” says Norman Reddus. “Fans kept this franchise alive even from day one. He answered a lot of questions fans had in this sequel. He didn’t do it for a studio, Hollywood, he only did it for the people who gave him the love first, the fans. I think that’s a credit to his personality.”

“This isn’t Gone with the Wind, it’s a small film. The kids discovered it. It wasn’t shoved down their throats from a studio. No marketing, and most of the college kids discovered it. They would take the DVD to their friends, and it continued that way. The fan base is unusually smart. Mostly smart college and high school kids,” says Brain Mahoney.

“People are just enjoying it, but its a certain group of people too. I can’t find the right category for them, but then there’s a certain group of people that will never see it, unless their friends force them too. They just seem to really take to it,” says “David Della Rocco. “It’s funny, you know, you do a film and you hope someone just likes it, and you just don’t know how it’ll turn out. To tell you the truth, the popularity of the film just grows, and I just don’t get it. I really don’t, and if I did I would write a couple of these (laughs)!”

“Fans love it for different reasons,” explains Troy Duffy. “Let’s be honest: the man taking the law into his own hands against the bad guys has been in movies forever. So I can’t say that’s it, but it’s the seed. It’s just must be some sort of magic shit that connects to people on a deeper level. The fact we got no theatrical release helped it. When fans find something like this on their own, and think about the films you found when you were a kid that nobody knew about, they felt like they were yours. Because it’s not advertised or the studios not telling you to like it, you showed your buddies to watch their eyes light up when shit happened. There’s just some sort of weird magic in movies that I can’t define it. It works and what has happened with the first film, there’s something undeniably there.”

I shall count the sheep among my favored sheep and shall you the protection of all the angels in heaven.

Since 1999, The Boondock Saints popularity has grown phenomenally. The sequel, All Saints Day hits Blu-ray and DVD March 9th. Feel free to leave a comment about your experience with the film! Find out more events about the film’s 10th Anniversary here and it’s March 11th One-Night Only Fathoms Event here.