Hale Kilinahe: Pith of Pop: Boondock Saints

There are quite a few reviews of this film that praise its sense of humor. They compare it to Tarantino's films.

Personally, I don't see it. Ryan described it as "campy", and I don't really get that, either. Showgirls is campy. Mommie Dearest is campy. This one? Kind of gross and weird.

It's the story of two Irish Catholic brothers in Boston who go around killing criminals. It starts off accidentally, but somewhere along the line, they team up with a friend of theirs--a mafia peon. Much bloodshed ensues.

Since the brothers are catholic, there is much ham-fisted catholic symbolism. Blood. Water. Latin phrases. In fact, the brothers, like Jules in Pulp Fiction, have a little prepared speech they use before killing somebody and part of it is in Latin. I understand the point the writers were making; I do; but the symbolism felt more like a big exercise in fetishism than an examination of spirituality and values.

Willem Dafoe is in this. I love Willem's knack for picking roles. His characters are always complicated and interesting. Here, he plays a cross-dressing, opera-loving FBI agent. He plays it way over the top. He's almost funny.

The ending makes absolutely no sense to me. A mafia kingpin (played by Billy Connolly) shows up and does something, but we're not sure why.