The Boondock Saints: Truth & Justice 10th Anniversary – Blu-ray Review
The Film:
Every great director has his imitator, and that’s what Troy Duffy is to Quentin Tarantino. Not like that’s a bad thing, either. Imitators feed a style that turns into a genre, and that’s where The Boondock Saints came from, this tough guy genre, made famous with the clever dialogue and cool guys with guns, like in Reservoir Dogs. But I think we can’t blame too much on Troy Duffy, since he knew what he was doing, right? The film has become a huge cult phenomenon, mostly because the imitation was done so well, with some sprinkles of originality, that people liked. Tough guys with guns are the pivotal image in the action genre, Tarantino just gave it a voice, that Duffy repeated.
Of course, we cannot separate the seemingly staged behind-the-scenes drama while making the film that became more of a vocal point than the film itself. Troy Duffy, it seems, irked off the very powerful Weinsteins, with his ego and alcoholism, which seemed to backfire on him in the industry. All of this was captured in a documentary called Overnight, but I really don’t think that helped The Boondock Saints in becoming such a cult hit amongst everyone not named a critic in 1999. Duffy arrogance serves as a warning to any up-and-coming film maker (allegedly), but what was it that made this a cult hit?
Let’s go back to my opening paragraph when I talked about Tarantino. He knows how to craft a scene, with great dialogue spoken by good actors. I’m more than certain Duffy knows this, as The Boondock Saints is filled with plenty of scenes like that. To me, the key reason to this film’s popularity is Willem Dafoe. Sometimes what’s written on a script page is only as good as the actor, and sometimes a better actor can make those words pop. Dafoe’s scenes sparkle the film with charisma, and I’m certain the sole scene and the basis of the cult popularity is Dafoe’s character of Smecker talking about “the fire fight” towards the end of the middle part of the movie. Dafoe is borderline out-of-control in his description of the gun battle, and Duffy’s unique framing device of placing him within the action as he successfully describes how it went down, is the exclamation point on the film, as well as the scene.
Now, there’s more to like in The Boondock Saints than just that, but that one scene stands taller over the others. In fact, that scene is used as a basis for two songs from the Long Beach metal band Bleeding Through, as heard in “Love Lost in a Hail of Gun Fire” and “Revenge I Seek”. Check one for the popularity of the film, now sourced in music. The film isn’t perfect, as it does meander and feels a bit too tongue-in-cheek at times, but this is tough guy cinema, and at least Duffy’s last laugh against the Weinsteins was these two Irish lads and a few gun shots. Sometimes a style needs to played well, or well enough, to get people to notice.
On a brief side note, what was wrong with Fox in 1999? The Boondock Saints and Fight Club were both mis-marketed by the studio, made nothing, yet became huge cult films. Both films were about tough guys finding themselves. Maybe each film was a showcase for the unsaid in men at the time in 1999 and we just rallied around what studio execs didn’t know then.
The Blu-ray:
Audio/Video: Looks and sounds exactly like the other Blu-ray edition. While that release was a pretty good looking/sounding HD disc, doesn’t the rapid fan base deserve a cleaner cut? There’s nothing to complain about, although the film isn’t as crisp as one would hope, there’s certainly no real flaws. The audio is loud, bass heavy, and aggressive, so there’s no fault in there. Good stuff, but fans hoping for any improvement, and I’m sure there’s room for it, will be hesitant about this release.
Outside of one new addition and exclusion, which I’ll highlight below, there’s nothing different than the 2009 Blu-ray outside of the packaging.
The Boondock Saints – The Film and the Phenomenon: Here’s the only new extra. It’s a 30-minute retrospective on the history and cult status of the film, with new interviews with Duffy and the cast. It’s really good, but to buy it just for this? I don’t know. Let me refer you to my retrospective on the film here.
All extras are the same: two Commentaries, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, and Trailers. You can re-read what I said about those here. The exclusion is just the printable script the 2009 edition had. Eh.
It’s hard to fully recommend this release as an upgrade if you already own the 2009 Blu-ray (with the gray cover), but if you don’t own The Boondock Saints in HD, this is a fine release.
The Film: Rating: 
The Blu-ray: Rating:
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