Reception
The film received generally negative reviews from critics; critics polled on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 17% "Rotten", with the site's consensus called the film, "A juvenile, ugly movie that represents the worst tendencies of directors channeling Tarantino." However, users gave the film a score of 93. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club described the film, in his review of the DVD, as "less a proper action-thriller" than "a series of gratuitously violent setpieces strung together with only the sketchiest semblance of a plot". Rabin went on to describe the film as "all style and no substance, a film so gleeful in its endorsement of vigilante justice that it almost veers (or ascends) into self-parody." Robert Koehler of Variety described the film in his review as "A belated entry in the hipster crime movie movement that began with Reservoir Dogs, Troy Duffy's "Boondock Saints" mixes blood and Catholic-tinged vigilante justice in excessive portions for sometimes wacky and always brutal effect. more interested in finding fresh ways to stage execution scenes than in finding meaning behind the human urge for self-appointed righting of wrongs."
Koehler also described Flanery and Reedus as "curiously stolid and blank", while praising supporting actors Connolly, Dafoe, and Rota for making the most of their screen time. Koehler also praised the tech personnel, "This uneven exercise in pacing and cutting is abetted by an eclectic score by Jeff Danna and whiz lensing by Adam Kane. Other tech credits fire bull's-eyes."
Film critics have taken note of the film's extreme violence and "slow-motion bloodletting".
In its original 5-theater run, the film only earned $30,471. It later developed a cult following and has grossed about $50 million in domestic video sales.
Read more about this topic: The Boondock Saints
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“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
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—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)