Norman Reedus (left) and Sean Patrick Flanery play murderous Irish brothers in “The Boondock Saints II.”
ALL tats and tribes and artery-opening vengeance, the sequel to 1999’s “The Boondock Saints” is a throwback picture that returns you to the late ’90s, when every third filmmaker thought he was the next Quentin Tarantino.
The murderous brothers the Saints (Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus), a self-appointed team of scumicidal warriors, return from the Ireland hideout they share with their dad (Billy Connolly) to Boston, this time to avenge the death of a priest whose murder was made to look like a standard Saints job. Back in Chowderville, a Southern FBI agent (Julie Benz of “Dexter”) knows they didn’t do it because “I’m so f – – – in’ smart I make smart people feel like they are retarded.”
You wouldn’t call “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” a taut thriller. More like a fleshy, messy, jangled frenzy of shootouts and much discussion about the mechanics of romantic entanglements that bloom between prison inmates.
“Does this make me look gay?” asks one guy, a Mexican sidekick (Clifton Collins Jr.) who has an eye for some festively multicolored revolvers. No. Directing a movie packed wall-to-wall with buff shirtless guys kinda does, though. You’d have to go to a chick flick like “The Time Traveler’s Wife” to find an equal amount of bare he-man hide.
Among the pleasingly ridiculous bits is a raving Judd Nelson as a gangster leader who smacks a henchman in the chops with a giant salami. There’s also a more welcome cameo by Peter Fonda, who despite his Godfather routine is the most restrained actor in sight — but by the time he checks in, the movie is a blur of deranged plotting and surplus villains.
With a little simplification (instead of a lot of work put into setting up another sequel), the movie could have been an average, albeit trashy and senseless, action picture. (Why would a guy who wants information out of another guy hand him a pistol so they can both play Russian roulette?)
In one of many elbow-in-the-ribs moments, Romeo the sidekick spends several minutes huddling with a janitor trying to come up with a cool one-liner to punctuate the mayhem. The one he comes up with — “Who ordered the whupass fajitas?” — says so much. Sometimes stupid can be endearing.