What the World Needs Now Is Not a 'Boondock Saints' Sequel

Troy Duffy once punched me in the crotch. It was a ferocious blow, worthy of the Hall of Fame of Great Cock Knocks. But, I should have seen it coming. The wind-up was long (yet the punch was swift and solid). I still cough up blood when thinking about it from time to time. I have never been the same since suffering through the dick-mangling wrath of Duffy’s The Boondock Saints. Nor has Willem Dafoe, who has been known to take long, treacherous journeys into the most uninhabited regions of Earth to reconcile with God about costarring in The Boondock Saints.

My attitude towards conflicting movie opinions is a tad hippie in its approach. To each their own, man. However, Boondock Saints provides the exception. And I must thank Duffy. The film whittled my world view to a simple philosophy that has served me well: If you love Boondock Saints, I cannot love you.

But enough with The Boondock Saints. I have ranted on that experience in the past. It is time to look to the future and buy stock in nut cups because Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (whoo, so serious sounding) is actually filming at this very moment, in the deepest pit of hell (or Boston or Vancouver or something, I don’t know, as long as it’s not in my backyard). The dorm-room poster industry is surely joyous over the news.

The movie will be like a groovy time-warp. A glorious trip back to the late ’90s, when ripping off Quentin Tarantino was the sort of cool thing to do — Troy Duffy: hackneyed douche or victim of peer pressure? But who knows? Maybe Duffy has some new stolen tricks up his sleeve. After all, he has had a decade-long break between his first and previous film, The Boondock Saints, and The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (you see , the title is a play on… oh, who gives a shit?) to watch plenty of movies and figure out how to poorly imitate their best moments. So I guess we can expect some bullet-time effects for this outing. As the kids say, that is so off the hook (if we were still living in the year 2000).

I don’t kid, I don’t kid. Duffy is the derivative of the derivative of dumb. Yet, I will give the man credit. He is tenacious. Boondock fans (if there are any that will claim the moniker) clamored for a sequel for years — their dorm-room posters were getting sun-faded and they were in need of fresh movie quotes detailing previously unimagined ways to overload sentences with the words “fuck,” “fucking” and “fucker.” And he has delivered on the promise of a sequel, despite burning every bridge imaginable by being one of the most arrogant, obnoxious assholes to ever get a lucky break in Hollywood (see the fascinating documentary on Duffy’s rise and fall called Overnight). I believe they call that moxy in Hollywood.

So yaaay, people who hate good cinema and who would probably kick a baby penguin if they could finally get their Boondock Saints sequel. That is one for the mouth-breathers. Yippee.

As much as I despise the first film, I cannot deny it has a large cult following. Assuming the sequel receives decent distribution and is not opened against Avatar, could it suck in a pile of mighty millions at the box office? At what point does a fanatical following bleed into mainstream appeal? This is the same conversation currently revolving around Twilight. Will it be big? Or will it be huge?

For All Saints Day, the question is more like will it be meh or will it be big? While thousands of fans will drag their knuckles into theaters across the country to get cock-punched by Duffy, I doubt the sequel will grab the attention of the average moviegoer. The cult of the Boondock Saints is similar to the cult of Kevin Smith’s “Jay and Silent Bob” films. If you walk onto a college campus and mention the films, everyone can tell you their favorite bits. But if you reference the films at your local mall, most people will just look at you real stupid-like and back away. Even at the height of Smith’s popularity, films such asDogma or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back remained minor blips on the box-office radar — and those films were stacked with legitimate stars. However, they made enough dollars for Smith to keep cranking them out. And since All Saints Day probably cost a few nickels and a couple of rental late-fees at Blockbuster, I am positive it will make enough to recoup its budget.

So yes, Duffy will inflict some below-the-belt pain on humanity with the creation of All Saints Day. Oh how I wish it were not so. Yet, I find hope in the likelihood that it will come and quickly go, and perhaps with a little bit of luck, and faith in your typical fanboy behavior, the cult will hate the living shit out of it and run Duffy out of the film business on a rail.

By the way, if you don’t know what Boondock Saints is and have been lost througout this entire cranky rant: