Mikkel Erlandsen

10

The Boondock Saints

Some movies pretend to be cool, others just are. The Boondock Saints kicks down the door, lights a cigarette, and shouts scripture while shooting in slow motion. Connor and Murphy MacManus are the self-proclaimed hands of God, scrubbing Boston clean with bullets, banter and a whole lot of rope. Their moral compass spins wildly, but who cares when the chaos looks this good?

Willem Dafoe steals every scene as Agent Paul Smecker, the genius who can solve a murder while dancing to opera and insulting everyone around him. His performance is so gloriously unhinged it makes the FBI look like performance art. And when he finally says, “There was a firefight!”, you feel it deep in your action-loving soul.

The film’s energy feels like it escaped from a Tarantino fever dream and crashed headfirst into Guy Ritchie’s editing suite. It’s bloody, it’s loud, it’s completely ridiculous, and somehow it still feels holy. Every gunshot feels like a confession, every curse like a hymn.

Even after multiple rewatches, it never loses its spark. It’s the cinematic equivalent of that one friend who drinks too much, tells the best stories, and somehow convinces you he’s doing God’s work.

If Pulp Fiction is divine chaos and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is witty crime poetry, then The Boondock Saints is the loud sermon in between; crude, clever and absolutely unforgettable.