Fleetwood Mac. Anything grape flavored. George W. Bush. And, Boondock Saints. It turns out that what I had thought to be an overblown, painfully run-of-the-mill crime film is worshiped like it was the Second Coming of Coldplay.
Initially, I thought it was a regional pride thing, as the film is set and was partially filmed in Boston. To a degree, I can relate – I’m from Philadelphia and would fight to the death to defend the honor of The Hooters, cheesesteaks, and my particular pronunciation of water, which occasionally includes two “d”s and a “u”. But my local pride is tempered by cultural sanity; you don’t see me comparing Rocky V to Million Dollar Baby.
Yet, I’ve heard many outside of Boston cite Boondock Saints as their favorite movie, which arouses the same incredulity and suspicion as Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers calling George Bush “the most brilliant man [she’d] ever met.” I urge both the Boondock-lovers and Miers to leave the house once in a while.
I don’t mean to convince people who like this movie that they’re wrong; I just want to know what they see in it. (Basically, the same as my attitude toward tofu and the Kerry campaign.) Because Boondock’s problem isn’t merely that it’s a bad movie; if that was all, it could still be enjoyed as a campy, pandering cliché of a film. But it’s drowned in over-the-top stylization and self-righteousness, like a cross between Death Wish IV and a Roger Waters concept album.
This is supposed to be an action movie, not a U2 concert; I don’t want or need any socio-political commentary. Especially not from a movie that has Ron Jeremy in it, unless the movie is about what the Republicans are doing to our country, something that Jeremy is an expert on, as he has made a lot of money doing that very same thing on film.
Boondock Saints has the ambition to rise above action fluff, but not the attention span, making its ill-advised moral endorsement of the hyper-religious vigilante serial killer main characters all the more stomach turning. The fact that people worship this movie would be disturbing if it wasn’t so nonsensical. As long as we’re glorifying the mediocre, I propose the formation of a new religion to worship Vanilla Sky. Oh, wait … that’s Scientology.
Boondock doesn’t even hold up to its influences: Reservoir Dogs, Shaft and The Professional are not only better, they’re much, much better. Boondock does, however, manage the remarkable feat of being simultaneously homoerotic and homophobic, a combination not seen since Pat Robertson filled in for Freddy Mercury in Queen.
The question at the heart of this matter is to what extent does the need to assimilate into the collective affect a person’s pop culture preferences? Admit it, you don’t really think Napoleon Dynamite is funny. Even on April 20 at Tommy Chong’s house (which is every day at Tommy Chong’s house), no one laughed at Napoleon Dynamite. I’ve seen funnier comas.
So I am pleading with pop culture consumers everywhere – declare your independence! Don’t let social pressures dictate the crap you enjoy! Let Freedom Ring!
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