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The Boondock Saints Deserves Cult Classic Status
What is The Boondock Saints About?
The Boondock Saints Has 1 Perfect Scene, And Critics Hate It
The term "cult classic" gets thrown around on a whim nowadays. Any film that is somewhat maligned upon release is stamped with the cult classic label, regardless of the divide between fans and critics. A true cult classic, however, is a film that is despised by critics but absolutely beloved by a small and passionate subset of audience members. At this point, the film is strapped to a rocket and becomes so prominent in the public eye that it becomes entirely impossible to ignore. Some of the key cult films of this century are Donnie Darko, Napoleon Dynamite, and one of the many Zack Snyder releases, but the quintessential cult film of all time just missed out on the new millennium.
The Boondock Saints is a 1999 crime thriller from the singularly-minded, but undeniably talented, Troy Duffy. The film has become iconic since its release for its unflinching violence, incredible performances, and poignant message, but it hasn't been without controversy. Even with the steady rise in love from audience members over the years, Duffy's film is still universally despised by critics, and one shocking disagreement fuels the divide. While the film certainly has its issues, The Boondock Saints contains one of the greatest movie scenes of all time, and it's the same exact scene that makes critics hate the film so deeply.
To understand the incredible cult status of The Boondock Saints, one first has to understand the arduous journey the film went through to even arrive in cinemas. When audiences think of rags-to-riches stories in the world of film, their minds generally go directly to the independent film landscape. Indie filmmakers are constantly hustling and pumping out films on shoestring budgets, and they rightfully deserve endless credit for their dedication, but the major studio system can provide some inspiring underdog stories as well, and Troy Duffy's meteoric rise to success is undoubtedly the best of the best.
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Troy Duffy, who wrote, directed, and worked on the soundtrack for The Boondock Saints, is the unlikely hero of '90s cinema. In 1995, Duffy was working as a bartender and a bouncer at J. Sloans, a staple of the West Hollywood bar scene. One night after returning from work, Duffy saw a drug dealer steal money from a corpse in his apartment building. While he was horrified by the event, it simultaneously served as the inspiration for his debut feature screenplay. Despite having never written a screenplay before, Duffy chipped away at the project over the course of the next year and eventually passed it on to a producer's assistant at New Line Cinema.
Before he knew it, Troy Duffy, with his rookie screenplay in tow, was the hottest ticket in town. The film became the subject of a bidding war, with Miramax eventually securing the project with an incredibly generous promise. The journey of The Boondock Saints wasn't over yet, however, as Miramax eventually dropped out of the project primarily due to casting disagreements. After an initial struggle with Miramax taking much of the money originally given to Duffy, the film was thankfully salvaged by Franchise Pictures and 20th Century Fox. The result is the Norman Reedus, Sean Patrick Flannery, and Willem Dafoe-led film that audiences have come to know and love.
It wasn't just the sisyphean production process that made The Boondock Saints a massive cult classic, it was also the gratuitously violent, juvenile, and undeniably hilarious story the film told. The plot of The Boondock Saints primarily follows Connor and Murphy MacManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus), two Bostonian brothers, who are spurred into action after a passionate and extremely violent act of self-defense following a bar fight. This confrontation makes the brothers realize that they are tired of crime running rampant through their streets, and they take it upon themselves to make the change. Inspired by their Irish Catholic faith and firmly believing that they are chosen by God, the duo systematically target and execute criminals.
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While the yet-to-be-identified brothers begin to attract the attention of admiration of the masses, their brutal vigilante methods quickly put them on the radar of both the police, and the endlessly eccentric Special Agent Paul Smecker, who is sent in by the FBI. As their body count rises and the crime scenes become messier, Smecker grows hotter on their trail, but in the process becomes more and more captivated by the pair's antics.
What follows from this point is an entirely unconventional cat-and-mouse game that cannot be compared to any one film. While the main appeal of the film is the incredible violence, Boston setting, and similarity to cult films of the same decade, the film does have some thematic relevance worth considering. The Boondock Saints muses on the validity of vigilante justice, community safety, and the moral compass that comes with religion. All of this is especially heightened with the film's unconventional news cast ending. Despite this thematic brilliance, Duffy's film has received a lot of hate over the years, and the main cause is one specific scene that exemplifies the critical divide.
As previously mentioned, Troy Duffy's The Boondock Saints jumps in between flashbacks and the current day constantly throughout the 108-minute runtime. The film utilizes very distinct scene transitions (flashbacks indicated by a red flash, flash forwards indicated by a black screen), but the best scene of the entire film ignores this well-established rule. Fans of The Boondock Saints already know, but the greatest scene in the entire film is the "There was a firefight" scene, featuring Willem Dafoe's Smecker conducting the madness of the gambling den shoot-out.
The film sees Smecker inserted into the flashback scene, walking around as the MacManus brothers and Rocco terrorize the gambling den. Instead of a typical and methodical FBI investigation, Smecker re-enacts every single bit of the scene, and finds himself enamored with the theatrical nature of the saints' vigilantism. He picks up a gun himself, plays the conductor, screams to the heavens, and beautifully re-tells the criminal act with stunning precision, all in sluggish slow motion. The scene is hilarious and ridiculously over-the-top, and nearly all of the credit goes to the completely unhinged performance of Willem Dafoe.
Despite the one-of-a-kind theatrics of this scene, it has become the subject of quite a bit of controversy over the years. Fans of The Boondock Saints see the scene as everything right with the film, heavily stylized, needlessly violent, and absurdist in nature. The ever-present dissenters of the film, however, feel exactly the opposite. Critics of The Boondock Saints view this scene as everything wrong with the film: overly stylized, cringeworthy, and entirely derivative of other cult films of the 1990s, specifically Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
While the haters of The Boondock Saints are largely mistaken, they do have a point regarding the film's similarity to Pulp Fiction. The film simply wouldn't exist without the Uma Thurman classic, and that can be seen clearly with the film's adoration for long-winded monologues, non-linear storytelling, and heavily stylized violence. The question isn't whether The Boondock Saints was inspired by Pulp Fiction or not, but instead whether that inspiration matters to the viewer, and therein lies the critical divide.
IMDb Score
Tomatometer
Popcornmeter
Letterboxd Score
7.6/10
26%
91%
3.4/5
As of June 2025, The Boondock Saints has a stunning divide on Rotten Tomatoes and other movie-rating platforms. The film's cult status is clearly reflected in the audience score, as the film touts a glowing score of 91% on the Rotten Tomatoes popcorn meter from 250,000 ratings. The critical consensus, on the other hand, is as negative as can be with a rotten score of 26%.
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Despite the endless hate from the critical minds of the world, Troy Duffy's The Boondock Saints remains in the dictionary as the definitive "cult classic." The film faced insurmountable opposition, from its early underdog story, to its production troubles, to its chaotic critical reception, but fought and survived it all. This uphill battle isn't just a fun quality that fuels conversation; it is the entirety of the film's identity. Regardless of which side of the aisle a viewer lands on, Duffy's film has undeniably carved out a distinct niche in cinematic history and deserves to be remembered because of it.
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The Boondock Saints
R
Action
Thriller
Release Date January 22, 1999
Runtime 108 minutes
Director Troy Duffy
Writers Troy Duffy
Cast
See All
Willem Dafoe
Sean Patrick Flanery
Norman Reedus
David Della Rocco
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