The Boondock Saints

There is such a thing as a 'director of one film', and it applies in two cases: either a person makes only one picture in his whole career, but one that leaves a mark on the history of cinema, or a director after success continues to make films, but each of his subsequent films is not even close to 'that one'. Troy Duffy, the screenwriter and director of Saints from Bunker, is definitely in the first category too, even though he has two films, but that's not important, because both films tell the same story.

There is not much to say about the plot - everything is very simple and banal, just like in many action movies. The heroes of Saints from Bunker are brothers Connor and Murphy who come from Ireland. They work quietly and more than modestly live in the slums of Boston, until one beautiful and holy day in the Irish bar rolls up a pair of Russian musclemen.

The trick to this film is more in the way the brothers' story unfolds and also in the characters. You can't say that Troy Duffy has created any unique stylistics in his film, because many of the techniques he uses can also be found in Guy Ritchie and Tarantino films: stills with captions introducing the characters, playing with time and even similar scenes. But at the same time it is not a soulless copying, but rather a reinterpretation, which results in a slightly different result, acquiring a special charm and charm. The latter quality, by the way, have countless characters, starting with special agent Smaker, investigating the brothers, and ending with an ordinary bartender, whose nervous verbal tics are simply unforgettable. As for Connor and Murphy, Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus playing them are not particularly talented, but watching twenty years later, for example, Norman Reedus, star of The Walking Dead and the recently released Kojima game Death Stranding, is quite interesting.

Literally everything feels the special attitude of the creator, to the smallest detail worked out his characters and gave them a soul, why even such a simple story has a crazy energy, which is impossible not to be infected. And then, looking at the ordinary bystanders, answering at the end of the film to the journalist's question, whether the brothers should be considered saints and not take them for criminals, one sincerely does not understand those who answer negatively.