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The Boondock Saints II: All Saints DayRobert AbeleTroy Duffy went from a bartending screenwriter to Harvey Weinstein's golden boy in the '90s with his calling-card script The Boondock Saints -- a brash action comedy about twin vigilantes. His resulting bad-behavior flameout in Hollywood was humiliatingly turned into a cautionary documentary (Overnight). But the best revenge is a fan base. Saints took off on home video. Now, 10 years later, Duffy has reemerged with a sequel, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, reuniting Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy MacManus (Norman Reedus) with their guns, bickering, vengeful streak and Boston mob dealings after an Irish sojourn with their hit man dad (the ever-shaggy Billy Connolly). Time may have healed some of Duffy's wounds, but it hasn't made him a better Tarantino knockoff, unfortunately. He tamps down his best instincts -- occasional wry humor and the appealingly oddball supporting character (Willem Dafoe last time, a bug-eyed Clifton Collins Jr. here as the MacManus' admiring Latino cohort) -- and doubles up on his worst: homophobic gags, tedious '90s-era slo-mo shootouts and overwrought gangster tropes. Props to him for attempting a female character, but in Duffy's hands, Julie Benz's sultry, stiletto-heeled FBI investigator is mostly a garishly lit alien being hopelessly crashing the aggro-fest. |
