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I have a tiny crush on Norman Reedus. This is absolutely true, for a given value of "tiny" that can be equated to this sentence: "Jupiter is the smallest planet in the solar system, and is, in fact, smaller than some sub-atomic particles."
I like his work - not stellar, certainly, he'll never get an Oscar, but very watchable, and, occasionally, very good indeed. Dark Harbor is a film that, I think, could only have been improved (and believe me, there's room for improvement!) if the director hadn't relied on the audience having more information than they did. For example, the scene where Reedus' character (Young Man) makes breakfast for Alan Rickman and Polly Walker has MUCH more impact when you realise that the tiny snippet of conversation less than five minutes into the movie meant that, in fact, there is NO food in the house, not merely "no fresh food" and he has made the meal with magic, implying that he is not entirely human. (Rough paraphrase from Director's Commentary). Additionally, an explanation for the significance of the "X" sweater in the dream scene would be NICE. But the point, at least one hyphen ago, was that Norman (and the rest of the cast) delivered very good performances; the director did not direct so well as he might have.
Reedus' performing trademark seems to be, in my limited experience (Dark Harbor, Gossip, Boondock Saints, and Tough Luck are the only ones I've seen, and that's a sad state of affairs, given how many movies he's in, but so many of them are TINY parts), the guy who behaves out of character until, at the end, you find out that he was in character all the time. Basically, it makes me want to scream at the movie, but okay, I can deal.
But I have a problem, and one that I have not been able to fully articulate. I dislike Boondock Saints intensely - for the reasons that most people give as their reason for liking it. It's an enjoyable movie, certainly not the flick of the century (or even the day; there's a reason that it only showed in theatres in two cities) and I didn't ask it to be.
I did ask it to be good, and it was not.
Ah, Troy Duffy, what sins have you wreaked upon us?
1) Characterisation.
- I'd like some, please. There isn't any. Murphy and Conor are, apparently, working-class Boston Irish who drink and go to church, and, later on in the movies, kill people. Willem Dafoe? Tries to pretend he's not gay while being swisher than San Francisco at pride. Everyone else? Is the extension of a gun. Except for Rosengurtle Baumgartener, who, apparently, explains why never in the movie are Conor and Murphy seen even speaking to a(nother) girl (other than their mother) and quite possibly the reason that the bds fandom abounds with MacManus-cest.
Seriously. The toilet has better characterisation.
2) Plot.
- Unlike the characterisation, this is minimally present, but it is minimal. The MacManuses go to church, go to work, fight with meat, go to the bar, get thrown out of the bar, light some Russian mafia dude's ass on fire, and chaos ensues. Not a lot of plot, but I have to confess that I have seen Urotsukidoji, or Legend of the Overfiend, and I know what a movie with no plot looks like. The plot in Boondock Saints never reaches any sort of conclusion, though. It's gunfight gunfight gunfight, accidental death of cat, gunfight gunfight, SERIOUS GUNFIGHTING, longest execution style killing in public EVAR, and that's the end of the movie. Oh, except for "man-on-the-street" reactions. Yakkavetta comes in, as a target, fairly late in the movie, with the definite sense of the third-act add-on. All their other targets have been Russian, so of course it's time to go after the Italians. Or something.
No, seriously, I understand that Rocco was working for the Italians, not the Russians, and the scene in the hotel was the whole point they switched from killing Russians to Italians, but Yakkavetta's a bit player throughout, until he's getting executed in court, apparently for having decided that they were causing him problems (rather than opening up business opportunities) and for killing Rocco, also known as the biggest liability on the planet since Maggie the drooling cow went to the glue factory.
...right.
3) Conflict and resolution
- There is no conflict/resolution scenario with the brothers. The resolution seems to be that they find their father. Except that they weren't looking for him. So that's not the resolution, unless there is some sort of crafty hidden "men-without-fathers" plot, but if there is, it's hidden so well that it's in another movie, possibly Fight Club, which was made the same year and certainly had enough of that plot to put in two movies.
So maybe the resolution is that they kill Yakkavetta and take their brand of street cleaning on tour. Except that that didn't start out being the conflict/resolution arc either. Their problem was with the new priest and the Russians closing their bar.
Or maybe the conflict/resolution is Smecker's transformation from "agonised enfant terrible FBI agent who-happens-to-be-gay-omg-we're-edgy" to "drag queen assisting the MacManuses even though it's a violation of, basically, his entire professional life and the standards set thereunto". Which I would buy. If Smecker was the main character.
And finally, the last point I have any interest in discussing tonight...
4) The POINT of this exercise in narcissism
- The overall problem that I have, however, is that vigilante justice isn't actually the way to change the world. If you kill twenty Mafiosi, you...make room for twenty non-Mafiosi to join. I'm all for killing people; it's certainly an elegant solution and one that I have no trouble, as a sociopath, embracing, but it's not a solution, and it's posited as being one by Duffy &co.
Seriously. This is not some kind of marvellous solution. It is a solution only if you do not see the cause of the problems. If the problem is, let's take a theoretical, film cuts that bleed, you do not shoot Guillermo. Instead, you refuse to give Tom Cruise any more movie roles, thereby ensuring that he will not be able to force Guillermo to roll in his press clippings. Or else you make such activities legal, ensuring that Guillermo will not earn a thousand dollars a night to roll in press clippings, and that Tom Cruise will have to hire a union-represented worker at higher rates.
Repeat after me. The solution to the problem is not to shoot Guillermo.
So why is the solution to the problem of crime in Boston to shoot a bunch of people? This has no impact at all, except that it opens up a bunch of slots in management. The organisation will not die off, and no such organisation that I know of has ever been terminally confused by killing off the head honcho.
Killing people may be fun, but vigilantism is not the answer - unless you only see the problems and not the causes. Then, it's an elegant solution. The problem is that there are hookers on the street; the answer is to arrest them. The problem is that we don't have enough oil to run our domestic industry; then we go to war in Iraq. The problem is that you have a really ugly front lawn and I'm tired of looking at your rotting cars; the answer is toshoot you get you to change the lawn.
This does not look beneath the surface to examine the reasons for the visible problem - something that, btw, I think Fight Club did very, very well, with its examination, however flawed it turned out to be in the end (and I don't mean "flawed by the author", I mean "the characters' viewpoints on the issue were flawed") - but instead postulates that the visible problem is problem and cause at the same time and that the solution is the removal of the visible problem.
This is not how the world works. And Troy Duffy would have made a much better movie if he'd borne that fact in mind - and from the sounds of things, he set out to make that better movie and never did it. I have to admit that my crush on Norman Reedus is not great enough to want to see Boondock Saints II, so I'm counting my lucky stars that the movie has been pulled from IMDb and will not be made, in this life or any other.
Your gods are made of tin, and yet you worship them. Your idols have feet of clay and will fall, and yet you worship them. Find ye worthy gods among the pantheon of the many and worship them, turning ye aside from gods of tin and idols with feet of clay. And I say unto you, yea verily, Boondock Saints is not among ye worthy gods for it has no purpose in life, other than to look pretty and explode. And that is not a sufficiency unto the end of thine days.
I like his work - not stellar, certainly, he'll never get an Oscar, but very watchable, and, occasionally, very good indeed. Dark Harbor is a film that, I think, could only have been improved (and believe me, there's room for improvement!) if the director hadn't relied on the audience having more information than they did. For example, the scene where Reedus' character (Young Man) makes breakfast for Alan Rickman and Polly Walker has MUCH more impact when you realise that the tiny snippet of conversation less than five minutes into the movie meant that, in fact, there is NO food in the house, not merely "no fresh food" and he has made the meal with magic, implying that he is not entirely human. (Rough paraphrase from Director's Commentary). Additionally, an explanation for the significance of the "X" sweater in the dream scene would be NICE. But the point, at least one hyphen ago, was that Norman (and the rest of the cast) delivered very good performances; the director did not direct so well as he might have.
Reedus' performing trademark seems to be, in my limited experience (Dark Harbor, Gossip, Boondock Saints, and Tough Luck are the only ones I've seen, and that's a sad state of affairs, given how many movies he's in, but so many of them are TINY parts), the guy who behaves out of character until, at the end, you find out that he was in character all the time. Basically, it makes me want to scream at the movie, but okay, I can deal.
But I have a problem, and one that I have not been able to fully articulate. I dislike Boondock Saints intensely - for the reasons that most people give as their reason for liking it. It's an enjoyable movie, certainly not the flick of the century (or even the day; there's a reason that it only showed in theatres in two cities) and I didn't ask it to be.
I did ask it to be good, and it was not.
Ah, Troy Duffy, what sins have you wreaked upon us?
1) Characterisation.
- I'd like some, please. There isn't any. Murphy and Conor are, apparently, working-class Boston Irish who drink and go to church, and, later on in the movies, kill people. Willem Dafoe? Tries to pretend he's not gay while being swisher than San Francisco at pride. Everyone else? Is the extension of a gun. Except for Rosengurtle Baumgartener, who, apparently, explains why never in the movie are Conor and Murphy seen even speaking to a(nother) girl (other than their mother) and quite possibly the reason that the bds fandom abounds with MacManus-cest.
Seriously. The toilet has better characterisation.
2) Plot.
- Unlike the characterisation, this is minimally present, but it is minimal. The MacManuses go to church, go to work, fight with meat, go to the bar, get thrown out of the bar, light some Russian mafia dude's ass on fire, and chaos ensues. Not a lot of plot, but I have to confess that I have seen Urotsukidoji, or Legend of the Overfiend, and I know what a movie with no plot looks like. The plot in Boondock Saints never reaches any sort of conclusion, though. It's gunfight gunfight gunfight, accidental death of cat, gunfight gunfight, SERIOUS GUNFIGHTING, longest execution style killing in public EVAR, and that's the end of the movie. Oh, except for "man-on-the-street" reactions. Yakkavetta comes in, as a target, fairly late in the movie, with the definite sense of the third-act add-on. All their other targets have been Russian, so of course it's time to go after the Italians. Or something.
No, seriously, I understand that Rocco was working for the Italians, not the Russians, and the scene in the hotel was the whole point they switched from killing Russians to Italians, but Yakkavetta's a bit player throughout, until he's getting executed in court, apparently for having decided that they were causing him problems (rather than opening up business opportunities) and for killing Rocco, also known as the biggest liability on the planet since Maggie the drooling cow went to the glue factory.
...right.
3) Conflict and resolution
- There is no conflict/resolution scenario with the brothers. The resolution seems to be that they find their father. Except that they weren't looking for him. So that's not the resolution, unless there is some sort of crafty hidden "men-without-fathers" plot, but if there is, it's hidden so well that it's in another movie, possibly Fight Club, which was made the same year and certainly had enough of that plot to put in two movies.
So maybe the resolution is that they kill Yakkavetta and take their brand of street cleaning on tour. Except that that didn't start out being the conflict/resolution arc either. Their problem was with the new priest and the Russians closing their bar.
Or maybe the conflict/resolution is Smecker's transformation from "agonised enfant terrible FBI agent who-happens-to-be-gay-omg-we're-edgy" to "drag queen assisting the MacManuses even though it's a violation of, basically, his entire professional life and the standards set thereunto". Which I would buy. If Smecker was the main character.
And finally, the last point I have any interest in discussing tonight...
4) The POINT of this exercise in narcissism
- The overall problem that I have, however, is that vigilante justice isn't actually the way to change the world. If you kill twenty Mafiosi, you...make room for twenty non-Mafiosi to join. I'm all for killing people; it's certainly an elegant solution and one that I have no trouble, as a sociopath, embracing, but it's not a solution, and it's posited as being one by Duffy &co.
Seriously. This is not some kind of marvellous solution. It is a solution only if you do not see the cause of the problems. If the problem is, let's take a theoretical, film cuts that bleed, you do not shoot Guillermo. Instead, you refuse to give Tom Cruise any more movie roles, thereby ensuring that he will not be able to force Guillermo to roll in his press clippings. Or else you make such activities legal, ensuring that Guillermo will not earn a thousand dollars a night to roll in press clippings, and that Tom Cruise will have to hire a union-represented worker at higher rates.
Repeat after me. The solution to the problem is not to shoot Guillermo.
So why is the solution to the problem of crime in Boston to shoot a bunch of people? This has no impact at all, except that it opens up a bunch of slots in management. The organisation will not die off, and no such organisation that I know of has ever been terminally confused by killing off the head honcho.
Killing people may be fun, but vigilantism is not the answer - unless you only see the problems and not the causes. Then, it's an elegant solution. The problem is that there are hookers on the street; the answer is to arrest them. The problem is that we don't have enough oil to run our domestic industry; then we go to war in Iraq. The problem is that you have a really ugly front lawn and I'm tired of looking at your rotting cars; the answer is to
This does not look beneath the surface to examine the reasons for the visible problem - something that, btw, I think Fight Club did very, very well, with its examination, however flawed it turned out to be in the end (and I don't mean "flawed by the author", I mean "the characters' viewpoints on the issue were flawed") - but instead postulates that the visible problem is problem and cause at the same time and that the solution is the removal of the visible problem.
This is not how the world works. And Troy Duffy would have made a much better movie if he'd borne that fact in mind - and from the sounds of things, he set out to make that better movie and never did it. I have to admit that my crush on Norman Reedus is not great enough to want to see Boondock Saints II, so I'm counting my lucky stars that the movie has been pulled from IMDb and will not be made, in this life or any other.
Your gods are made of tin, and yet you worship them. Your idols have feet of clay and will fall, and yet you worship them. Find ye worthy gods among the pantheon of the many and worship them, turning ye aside from gods of tin and idols with feet of clay. And I say unto you, yea verily, Boondock Saints is not among ye worthy gods for it has no purpose in life, other than to look pretty and explode. And that is not a sufficiency unto the end of thine days.
