Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
Boondock Saints came on TV last night, so I just marathoned both movies. Which, the more I watch, the more attached I become to the brothers.
The second movie starts years and years after the first. Connor and Murphy have gone back to Ireland with their dad to lay low as the law was after them in America. They're now quiet sheep farmers, but even their father knows that the killer in both of them lies just below the surface and while they might seem at peace, it's always ready to spring back into action, no questions asked. And it does come back in a big way. Someone kills a priest and frames the brothers. If there's one thing you would do to make them see red and come gunning for you, it's that. So within minutes they're back to America to cut a bloody swathe through Boston again and make sinners pay.
The second movie is a lot slicker looking than the first. You can tell that years have honed the directors craft a bit more. At the same time, the slickness takes away a bit of the grindhouse grit that the first movie has. The first movie wallows in ugliness. The twins stand out because first off, physically they're beautiful in a truly nasty world and secondly because in that world their neighbors and everyone around them establishes that they're "angels". People like them. There's every indication that they're nice guys who will do anything for you if they like you. The whole first movie is crawling with lowlifes and creeps and physically ugly people, while oddly the MacManus's are strikingly handsome boys. And I do say boys because not only do they act boyish, goofing around and picking on each other, Reedus especially looks almost angelic in the first movie. A dark angel, maybe, but he honestly looks almost fragile in the face at times. I would like to think that was done on purpose.
Obviously this movie can't play quite the same way. Flanery and Reedus are ten years older. Flanery especially looks it. Reedus's looks have matured by this point to where you can tell he had his days as a Prada model, but things have sort of settled to a lived in handsome. This was after the devastating car accident he had, so it's amazing he's still probably the handsomest. The boyishness in looks is gone. And while they still get up to juvenile trouble (in some ways it seems like they never grow up), their relationship with each other is even more settled in. They bicker more, but there's also a deep level of them being completely comfortable with no one other than each other. So the second movie relies on a lot more humor than the first. The boys are literally more playful and less inclined to be creepy this round. They argue with each other more and Murphy speaks up more rather than just going along with Connor. Murphy will always be the more volatile and sensitive twin, but he also shows that of the two he's seemed to have matured from the first movie. He's the one who starts criticizing stupid plans and taking the piss out of Connor when he can. The brothers still move perfectly in tandem though and can still improvise wildly, because, as they admit, they very rarely have a plan. They might look like professionals, but it was their father who was the cold blooded killer. Yes, they're cold blooded too, but Noah was a professional through and through. His boys have each other, which may have saved their souls a little in the long run. And the boys have friends. By the end of this movie, more and more people are on their side trying to protect them. They may not be the brains of the operation, but they sure as heck are the weapons and it becomes evident that a lot of people are willing to protect that. The first movie the boys are very very ambiguous. You can't really tell whether it's right to like them or if they're just insane. Most movies with anti-heroes spell it out. The first movie doesn't. In this one, it's much more evident that the twins are "good". The first movie you only hear about once Murphy say someone is not to be harmed because they're "good" even though that's more convinient. In this one they say it a lot.
Best moments:
1. Connor and Murphy shaking off any peace they might have had in Ireland and becoming the killers they always were. They might have put their past behind them for a while, but it never changed who they fundementally were. All they need to hear is that a good man was killed in their name and every killing instinct they have instantly comes to the surface. As Noah says, the problem with the Italian's plan to get them out of hiding is that it worked. God help you all now. Them digging up their past (literally) to a grinding rock song with the line "they say I'm the bastard son of one bad motherfucking line of blood" is more than perfect. The boys are born and bred killers and it's fun to see that come out again.
2. Any time the brothers admit they have no plan. They do NOT think things through, which is part of their charm. It also nearly gets them killed a LOT. Thankfully they're quick on their feet and good at winging it. Also their penchant for taking their plans from movies. Or at least Connor's penchant for that, which Murphy finally has more than enough of this movie. Probably because he IS the follower he gets fed up with Connor not coming up with anything good.
3. Noah's death and Noah in general. He loves his sons and he knows in a way he's damned them just be being their father. But he does his best to protect them and make sure there are people left there to protect them. Connor and Murphy are innocents in a lot of ways and Noah recognizes that. When he has the showdown in the bar and tells them to stand off because "Daddy's working", you see just how different he is from them. There's every indication that if Noah had died there, Connor and Murphy would have finished the Short Man, but Noah holds their relatively long leash and they just sit and pray and wait for their cue. And the fact that after Noah dies the fight seems to go out of the twins a little. Sure, you seem them aching for a showdown at the jail, but they feel their father's death.
4. All the strange people who work to protect the boys in their weird ways. The Saints have their own angels. You have every expectation that the twins will be broken out of jail at the end and they show every indication of raising hell in there until they get broken out. As Agent Bloom frets about them being alone in the jail, Smecker shows the confidence of knowing the twins a long time by saying he thinks they'll be just fine for a while as the movie shows Connor and Murphy quietly taunting the waiting crowd of inmates below. It's not the MacManus's that are in trouble at the end, it's the inmates and everyone who's seen the twins recognizes that.
5. I will always get chills when "The Blood of Cu Chulainn" plays. I love that song and the opening of the first movie will never fail to make my heart happy with the boys just walking around Boston and goofing off and having a good time before it's all shot to hell. Something about that music will always give me a heart swelling feeling. There's a certain joy and melancholy to it that is perfect. It's the perfect theme for damned fallen angels with good hearts, which is what the twins are.