Filmic Pulp

This film is one about two Irish-Catholic brothers in South Boston who believe in vigilante justice, by the will of God. They, the McManus brothers, feel that their mission from God is to take down the mobs and the pimps and murderers and the thieves by becoming one of them (it’s the same strategy used by Rage Against the Machine, by trying to bring down corporations while being a part of one–easier access to millions).

So that’s a decent plot, I suppose. But this movie tries to hard to be a Quentin Tarantino film tailor-made for teenagers. With its score replete with techno and rock and the slow motion and the violence, this movie wasn’t made for the thinking man, as many want to believe since it raises an ethical question, but instead it was made for the 13 year old who sneaked into this film.

And the script isn’t very well written either. Instead of having characters state or discuss their identities, we are given a set of written titles for each of them and what their connection is. If this was for the thinking man, couldn’t he figure all this shit with a few more lines of dialog? This type of explication, along with narration, often show weakness in the writer’s style. And, luckily, there’s no narration.

But maybe I’m missing the whole point of the movie and am instead focusing on Willem Defoe’s terrible performance or the film itself. Writer\Director Taylor Duffy (who hasn’t made a movie since–nine years on, thank God) wants us to look past the movie and its shit acting in order to focus on the question at hand: Is vigilante justice ok?

But instead of subtly allowing the question to filter into our minds, he shoves it upon us at the end of the film with a fake newspiece interviewing people around Boston about the brothers, who’ve been dubbed The Saints. They give you all the answers right there, both sides of the coin. So what is there to discuss? How you feel personally? That’s no necessary, the crazy black girl said it better than you ever could.

You cannot force a viewer to think when you’ve made a piece of sloppy trash like this movie. The only performance worse than Ron Jeremy’s (yes, he’s in this movie and no, you don’t see his penis) was Willem DeFoe’s. I had hope in him after I saw Wild at Heart, but his performance here is over-the-top and terrible. He plays the homosexual detective who is flamboyant and most of the time right. But he’s not very good at this whole acting thing. He performs like no one would ever act in real life. So maybe Defoe’s problem is that he’s a good actor, but he needs proper direction, and only some director’s can make him do what he’s good at. What he’s good at, I have no idea. But apparently it’s not being a gay FBI detective and it’s not being the Green Goblin.

I guess you’ll like this movie if you’re thirteen or if you’ve already seen all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies and you want to see something that is a shoddy attempt at imitation (much like Smokin’ Aces of 2007). It left a bad taste in my mouth, that’s for sure.