You are Not Required to Love a Masterpiece
Over the past few months, upon going to forum after forum of movie sites i found a ton of scathing comments and reviews about a film i dearly love. The Boondock Saints. This little known film by little known director Troy Duffy was on point to be released in theaters in 1999 when the Columbine massacre happened. This, along with Mr. Duffy’s alleged doucheism, severely derailed the film’s momentum and The Boondock Saints received only a limited release on American soil.
Home video though is an entirely different story. Having been released numerous times on DVD, the film slowly gained a cult following and in now considered a cult classic. That is how i got hold of this film, i have heard people talking about this movie and it piqued my curiosity.
Surely enough a couple of nights ago i sat down, laid back and watched it.
And i was blown away. Granted, The Boondock Saints was never the Citizen Kane of our time nor did i expect it to be. I wanted a good action film. And that is what i got.
Therein lies the problem.
The movie got a ton of bad reviews and right now it scores a 17% rating on rottentomatoes.com, even i dont have to tell you that sucks. But I LOVE THAT FILM, i highly encourage you to watch it. I love that film the same way i love Crank: High Voltage. Those two movies delivered on something they promised: Action. There are certain types of film that require an audience to suspend their disbelief and if you come in on this film with an open mind or at least a “hell yeah” mentality you will agree with me that this film is good.
So why all the hate? If you took some time to view the imdb boards of the movie, you will see hate posts after hate posts. And i honestly was shocked to see that, but then i looked closer. I noticed that this film did not receive to much love because of its status. I find no problem with people voicing out their opinions (surprise, surprise.. thats what im doing now) but c’mon, loving movies is strictly matter of preference. People love to shit on this film because it’s become a cult classic, a cult classic that doesn’t have any underlying philosophical struggle and it sure as hell is not an avant garde piece of film-making.
This is what annoys me about this indie/underground/hipster whatever culture. These people go out of their way and try to find art in everything. Not everything has to be deep and philosophical. It just needs to be real. No more of that pretentious crap that these people feed upon. It certainly wasn’t made to be an introspective journey into the human psyche. Its about two brothers killing bad guys. That’s it. Its a bad movie, yes, the story is flat and cliche but is it entertaining? YES Did it deliver on good action? YES. Did it need an internal struggle between the forces of good and evil in a man’s soul? NO. And guess what? It didn’t have any.
It’s a cult classic sure, but it only became that way because it was a victim of its time and ALLEGEDLY because of Troy Duffy’s self destructive ego ( I have not yet seen Overnight, the documentary about Mr. Duffy and the creation of this film to know the facts behind Troy Duffy.) But WHAT IF Columbine never happened, what if this film got released in theaters on time. I bet that it would have made more money that it earned but it would definitely not be on my top 10 list. Believe you me, should things have gone right for this film in 1999, this would be remembered only as a mindless action movie and Troy Duffy would fade into obscurity within two years. This movie received some blessings in disguise. An unexpected classic and an entertaining film. Not the best but it’s one of my favorites.
