Amid the various show-bingeing going on at present, we watched Boondock Saints last night. Crazy movie, ridiculous violence, but entertaining nonetheless despite its age (1999). And they do well with nearly a complete no-name cast, save for Willem Dafoe, Billy Connolly definitely playing against type, and (if you know who he is), Ron Jeremy in a bit part.

Basically this is a vigilante movie of another stripe – here, two Irish guys from South Boston go on a killing spree, wacking lots of heavy hitters in the various Boston Mafia clans (Russian, Italian, you name it). The movie doesn’t have a positive view of the Boston police for sure (Willem Dafoe is the FBI agent who gives them their marching orders) and it’s pretty gritty generally.

There are also some pretty crazy scenes in this movie and at least a couple notable stunts. While it’s nothing you haven’t seen before, if you’ve ever watched ANY gangster movie or movies with big shootout scenes (a la The Matrix of the same year as this movie but far less blood) and while the climatic scene to us simply didn’t work, it’s still a great ride, even if it veers into weird territory several times (You have to kind of figure out what’s going on at the start for a bit, it doesn’t really have much of an intro, kind of like jumping into a moving car, plotwise – and Willem Dafoe has a multi-layered character, to be sure).

Given the amount of blood flying around is not really less than say, Zatoichi, Snatch or In Bruges, or other similar over-the-top style fight/samurai movies, i’d definitely NOT recommend watching this with any kids. Enjoy!