YMMV / The Boondock Saints

Both films

• Alternative Character Interpretation: In his review of the sequel, Brad Jones stated that he doesn't consider the Saints to be vigilantes, but rather straight-up serial killers.
• Awesome Music: The film's opening theme, Blood of Cuchulainn and its remix in the sequel Blood of Cuchulainn 2010.
  • Also, Saints from the Streets, which plays over both the opening scene and the Il Duce shootout.
  • From the second film, the funny use of the song "Balls Deep" by Deleno Matthews when the boys go to get some weaponry from their arms dealer friend. But, also, the use of "The Saints Are Coming" by The Skids for the closing credits (and also used in the trailer).
• Crosses the Line Twice: Accidentally shooting someone's cat? Pretty sad and possibly a case of animal cruelty. Rocco slamming his hands down on a table, causing his pistol to discharge, which practically vaporizes an unfortunate feline and sprays what is left of it across the wall while the trio freak out from the shock, followed by Rocco looking at the bloody chunks of gore left behind and asking, "Is it dead?" One of the most iconic scenes of the entire franchise.
• Critical Dissonance: You betcha, with critics panning both films with a 23% Rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audience reaction for the first film was vastly more positive at a Fresh 91%. It is actually one of the movies with the largest rating disparities between critics and audiences ever recorded on the site. The second film was much less enthusiastically received by audiences, at a Rotten 58%, though that's still a hefty 35% disparity.
• He Really Can Act: Billy Connolly as Il Duce. Actually, everyone already knew he could act since Mrs. Brown, but these movies established that he really can be a credible action movie badass.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Willem Dafoe plays Paul Smecker, an FBI Agent on the trail of a pair of vigilante murderers. Eighteen years later, he would star in the American adaptation of Death Note, playing the death god Ryuk whose notebook allows the Villain Protagonists Light and Mia to become supernaturally-empowered vigilantes, while L plays a very similar Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist role in that film as Agent Smecker does here.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Connor and Murphy MacManus are a pair of Irish Catholic brothers in Boston who believe they have received a revelation to kill the wicked. First murdering a host of Russian mobsters via a clever ambush, the two recruit their friend David Della Rocco and use his knowledge of the inner mob workings to strategically strike and eliminate as many evil men as they can. After being caught by the Yakavetta family, the two get free via Murphy having Connor break his wrist to slip a cuff and the two reunite with their long-lost father to avenge Rocco by sneaking into "Papa Joe" Yakavetta's trial to execute him. Seen as heroes, the brothers later return to all but annihilate more syndicates and prepare to take their crusade to new levels, their influence having grown to the point even police hear their calling.
  • Special Agent Paul Smecker of the FBI is a genius who never fails to solve a crime. Upon the string of murders of criminals in Boston, Smecker soon puts together that Connor and Murphy are responsible but believing in the righteousness of their cause decides to save them from the Yakavettas by disguising himself as a woman to gain access. Arranging their access to the courthouse to execute Papa Joe, Smecker later fakes his death to go underground and directs his protege Agent Bloom to help the Saints while he builds a secret network to see their work taken to new levels.
  • "Il Duce", real name Noah MacManus, is a mob hitman feared for his deadly proficiency and known for his refusal to take contracts on women or children. A genius killer ever since he watched a mobster murder his beloved father, Noah is hired by Papa Joe to kill the MacManus brothers, proving the boys' deadliest match before recognizing them as his sons and executing Papa Joe in court before retiring to Ireland. Returning when the Roman—his former childhood friend who had betrayed him—attacks his sons, Noah reigns down furious vengeance upon his organization, personally killing the Roman even while mortally wounded, fulfilling his revenge and dying accomplished.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Rosengurtle Baumgartener is Coach Beiste.
  • Clifton Collins Jr. has been in many movies before or since this one, but seriously... is that Tendo Choi/Cesar screaming "Ding Dong, motherfuckers" and using a gold-plated silenced .45 Colt?
  • One of the "People on the street" being interviewed in the ending of the first film is an uncredited, pre-fame Bradley Cooper.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The boys' reactions to Rocco's death is terribly sad. The victim gets shot while tied to a chair. The brothers are witness to the act and they are also tied up and powerless to do anything. Murphy throws himself, chair and all, to the ground and crawls to Rocco to rest his head on the victim's cheek and cry. Connor is reduced to screaming at Rocco, God, Yakevetta, and anyone else who will listen.
    • Rocco's last words are pretty badass.
      Rocco: (to Connor and Murphy) You can't stop. You get out of here. Don't ever stop.
  • Connor screaming and struggling to get loose as the mafia thugs drag Murphy out to be executed.
  • In the second film, the boys' father also dies, making their lives all the worse for it.
  • The brief moments we see of the innocent priest tearfully begging for his life while he's dragged before his own altar and murdered in cold blood:
    Connor: He was a good man. Ran youth hostels and soup kitchens.
    Murphy: Even made it into the paper sometimes...
    *both brothers leave the table to go tool up and avenge him*

First film

• Crosses the Line Twice: The whole damn movie. Shooting an innocent cat? Utterly despicable. Accidentally shooting a cat, and reacting with a Cluster F-Bomb? Very funny. Attempting to conceal the blood splatter on the wall by taping a (much too small) piece of paper over it? Fucking hilarious.
  • The piece of paper is a picture of the cat.
  • "Is it dead!?"
  • "I can't believe that just fuckin' happened!"
• Cult Classic: Maintains a devoted fanbase despite never being a commercial success and heavily panned by critics. The AV Club featured it on the their "New Cult Canon" list and cited Troy Duffy's inflated ego to be one of the things that made the movie particularly infamous. Watching it on St. Patrick's Day has become a tradition and it is often used in drinking games.
• Memetic Mutation: "Willem Dafuq" for Agent Smecker's crossdressing scene, which isn't actually the weirdest thing that Willem Dafoe has done on camera.
  • This clip of Dafoe describing Agent Smecker ("He's gay, but he... he has a special connection to classical music, there's many interesting things about him") has become popular on TikTok.
• Heartwarming Moments: In a shameless action flick, they're relatively rare, but a definite one is when Murphy's dragged out by the Russian mobsters, he and Connor are yelling for each other, and then Connor rips the toilet out of the floor, climbs to the top of their tenement building, and drops it on the guy's head, because he tried to kill Murphy. Then he jumps down after it and lands on the other gunman, not even stopping to think of how easily the stunt could, and should, have killed him. If there was any question of how much the two brothers love and care for each other, this sequence answers it rather spectacularly.
  • The brothers reaction upon learning Il Ducé is their long lost father is truly beautiful.
  • Something about Smecker's tutelage of the Boston detectives is nice, too. He's a seasoned FBI agent, specializing in organized crime, but he makes sure that the city PD guys not only see his reasoning and follow his various trains of thought, but also learn something from their time investigating with him. Much of the time, he even comes across as eager to teach them. When he begins offering his rundown of the shootout with Il Ducé, Dolly, Duffy and Greenly all whip out their pads in quick succession, ready to take notes.
• Ho Yay: The hit on the Sick Mob Man, after which Connor puts his hand over Rocco's mouth, and kisses the back of his hand. Which doesn't even make sense in context, unless you count Rocco's immediate silence.
• One-Scene Wonder: The "rule of thumb" lady from the beginning.

Second film

• Badass Decay: We first meet Romeo when he beats up a much larger man with his hands chained behind his back. He spends the rest of the movie being made fun of by the brothers.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: When Eunice Bloom starts with the gun tricks in a cow girl outfit for no reason.
  • Also, the dream sequence in the hockey arena.
    • The hockey arena is a subtle callback to Greenly suggesting that their mass execution of the mob bosses take place center ice at a Bruins game because of how public it will be. It's an homage to the passing of his character, as is the line "Thanks for coming out."
• Contested Sequel: Audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes dropped from 91% for the first film to 58% for the sequel. Same for IMDB, from 7.8 for the first to 6.3 for the second. Commonly cited among its flaws is a very uneven tone when compared to the original, with a lot of forced, somewhat unpleasant attempts at comic relief (see Squick directly below). Despite this, it does have its fans.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Special Agent Eunice Bloom is Smecker's protege and equal in crime scene deduction. Secretly a devotee to the Saints, Bloom, after having her fun scaring Smecker's old colleagues, begins setting up their murder scenes to stage as mobsters killing each other and keeping the MacManus brothers safe from the law. Even when they wind up arrested at the end, Bloom meets with Smecker and after the two hatch a plan to spring the brothers from jail.
  • "The Roman" was once Louie Romano, best friend of Noah MacManus. After helping his vigilante friend arm and prepare himself for hits, Louie grew greedy, helping the mob arrest Noah and later used the Yakavetta family to secure his rise in the criminal underworld. Luring out Noah by having his hitman attack his sons, the Roman prepares for their attack on his manor, calmly admitting his crimes to Noah before having his men Noah and the MacManus brothers, ending with Noah mortally wounded and calmly accepting his fate, the battle bloody enough that even the Saints themselves cannot escape the police when they happen upon the scene.
• Narm: Special Agent Bloom's overly affected and slightly lisping southern accent sounds just a wee bit too much like Truman Capote at times.
• Squick: Some of the descriptions of how screwed people are/have been:
  Greenly: We are totally FUCKED! And not just fucked — this is elephant dick, pound-in-the-ass, no-reach-around, JUNGLE FUCKED!
  Concezio: These two sons of bitches PRISON FUCKED US!...IN THE ASS! And then they wiped their dicks on our grandmas' drapes!
  Greenly: I hope you guys love cock-sandwiches, because we're going to be eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A lot of people were unhappy that Willem Dafoe wouldn't be returning. Then he shows up in the last five minutes of the movie!

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