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FILM REVIEW: THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II
By Michael Phillips
Tribune Newspapers Critic
1 star

"The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" gives so much a bad name: Irish pride, clumsy sequel titles containing colons, ethnic slurs, homophobic un-wisecracks, Judd Nelson's inability to say "when" as an over-actor, and the inevitable shot of men walking toward the camera, in sunglasses and slow-motion, just before murdering someone.

Actually, Billy Connolly pulls off that last one. He's genuinely cool, and he has a fabulous head of hair. The rest of this loose flap of a sequel, which has arrived 10 long years after the original "Boondock Saints" made a pile in DVD rentals, is just the same auld same auld.

Writer-director Troy Duffy needs to YouTube himself a new idea or two, because his variations on themes provided by Quentin Tarantino and Guy "RocknRolla" Ritchie are pure mold. In the original film, the brothers played by Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus were sort of human. In the sequel, they aren't. They're just glib killing machines, out to eliminate the gangsters responsible for killing a Boston priest in the style of our heroes, the MacManus boys, who are hiding out with their dad in Ireland in the story's early going.

Quick as a couple of winks they hop a freighter 'cross the Atlantic to return home, where Nelson's bug-eyed overacting mobster is thirsty for blood. Julie Benz, better than her material, plays a federal agent warring with the local police. Feds clashing with local authorities - I hope someone reuses that sometime.

Just as Willem Dafoe's agent swanned around intuiting crime-scene flashbacks in the first film, Benz's character does the same here. And sure as my dear mother's maiden name is Jeannie Gallagher, Duffy's film made me sad for the Irish in general and Irish-American vigilantes in particular. Here's hoping "Boondock Saints III: Yeats' Birthday," which I hope to see in 2019 but not before, can make amends.

MPAA rating: R (for bloody violence, language and some nudity).

Running time: 1:57.

Cast: Sean Patrick Flanery (Connor MacManus); Norman Reedus (Murphy MacManus); Billy Connolly (Poppa M); Clifton Collins Jr. (Romeo); Julie Benz (Special Agent Bloom); Peter Fonda (The Roman); Judd Nelson (Concezio Yakavetta).

Credits: Written and directed by Troy Duffy; produced by Chris Brinker and Don Carmody. An Apparition release.