Boondock Saints

Brian Herron

The Boondock Saints (2001)

Director: Troy Duffy

The Boondock Saints is a film set in Boston, Massachusettes about two Irish men (played by Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) who hunt down and kill gangsters, criminals, and lowlifes. They gain popular media attention and are nicknamed the saints. However, an FBI agent (Willem Dafoe) is on their tail trying to bring the saints to justice.

The scene that will be reviewed here is when the saints, along with their Italian-American friend, go to the house of a hit-man who works for the Italian Mafia and kill him along with a group of his poker buddies. It starts out with Willem Dafoe at the crime scene of the shooting that is about to take place. Throughout the scene, Dafoe narrates..

Shot 1: Establishing shot of Dafoe and a group of Police officers at the crime scene.

Shot 2: Cut to a pan of guns on the street and shattered glass that are being investigated.

Shot 3: Cut to a pan of blood on the front of the house being investigated.

Shot 4: Cut to a zoom of Dafoes face as he takes in the chaos around him.

Shot 5: Cut to a medium shot of a group of police officer, then a second later Dafoe stands up into the frame.

Shot 6: Cut to a close up of a line of cops opening up their notepads.

Shot 7: White Dissolve into the saints loading their guns inside a van then pans to Dafoe who is sitting in one of the seats as he narrates what’s going on, however the viewer realizes that Dafoe is not their in reality even though he is being physically shown in the scene.

Shot 8: Cut to saints getting out of the van running towards the house.

Shot 9: Cut to saints opening up the garage, walking in, and then closing the garage.

Shot 10: Cut to saints making the victims wife open a secret door while the camera zooms out. Then the camera zooms back in to Dafoe as he narrates and everything else in the shot is motionless. This is the longest shot in the scene.