There are likely a myriad of reasons why this movie should have aged badly. And yet…

Since I first saw this movie in 2009, a full decade after its initial release, I knew that it would become one of those movies I watched over and over ad infinitum. Fast forward a decade and a year… and I’ve watched The Boondock Saints at least once a year since then, usually around St. Patrick’s Day because well, why not?

I’ve never since tried another drinking game with this movie, though I’ve tried to get others to play one, and lost a lot of people’s trust along the way. But hey, we do what we must to pass the pain along. So, with this ringing endorsement – what’s there to love about this feast of violence of testosterone? Lots of things! Let me count the ways….

• This is a movie about family: we follow two brothers – twins, even! – as they stumble from danger to danger, dodging feds and mafioso alike. What holds them together and drags them through the thickest of plot inconveniences? Family! Who doesn’t love that?
• Good triumphing over evil: many times, the thing that holds back the flood of sin and villainy isn’t the institutions meant to protect us, but average men and women who’ve decided that enough is enough. This movie is about two brothers who make that decision.
• Willem Dafoe: what more do you need?

Sounds like good fun, doesn’t it? And yes, twenty years and change after its release, this movie is great fun. In fact, this movie voted in the poll that determined it to be good fun because even in the USA, The Boondock Saints is old enough that if it were a person it’d be allowed to vote.

Mood Rating: The Boondock Saints is the guy you dated in your early twenties. You have nothing bad to say about him, he was actually kind of great. But even then, you knew it wouldn’t work out. You still hang out every once in a while though, and you love every minute of it.