|
Not a fan. I had heard from a few unreliable (read: young and overly excitable) sources that this was the great cult film of the last X years and I really, really needed to see it. I kept putting it off. Then recently, my girlfriend, who teaches a class at one of the big state universities, had several of her students tell her that it was great and she needed to see it. So fine, we caved in and borrowed it from a friend.
Fifteen minutes in, we were both ready to turn it off. Suffice to say, I don't get the hype, at all. Many of the affectations seem completely ludicrous (e.g. Willem Dafoe's entire character), the editing is poor, and the whole enterprise seems to scream from every frame, "Hey! We're fuckin' cool! Watch us smoke and fire handguns!"
Basically I think everything this movie wants to be was done a whole lot better by "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," "Hard Boiled," and a handful of others. I'd lump "Boondock Saints" in with "Killing Zoe" and "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" - copycats and also-rans, basically. Except "Saints" seems even less self-aware and more full of itself, which is not a good quality. At least "Things to Do..." didn't take itself so seriously, as much as it sucked out loud.
|