Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day falls from grace

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day may quench the thirst of loyal cult followers of The Boondock Saints (1999), but it might not quench the thirst for moviegoers who were looking for an improvement.

The sequel has a quasi-Tarantino style. Screenwriter/director Troy Duffy brings the twin brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) MacManus, who have been living with their father (Billy Connolly) in Ireland, back to Boston to avenge the murder of a priest. The slain priest was killed in a similar manner the MacManus' used to exact on crime bosses.

After the brothers shed their biblical Irish herdsman-like beards they sail back to America.

On their voyage they meet Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.). Romeo is the McManus brothers' crack-head-Latino sidekick who bears the brunt of Duffy's crass humor throughout the film, and is constantly suspected of being homosexual.

Collins mimics the role that David Della Rocco (Funny Man' Rocco) played in the first Boondock Saints, just as FBI agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz, Dexter), imitates Willem Dafoe's (Antichrist, 2009) previous character as the rogue officer assisting the brothers.
Scenes of Reedus and Flanery having sibling squabbles that end up stoking their vengeful bent to kill mobsters are repeated as well.

All Saints Day smacks of cut-and-paste action sequences peppered with male bravado, not to mention a few racist and homophobic comments thrown in for shock value.

The dialogue is not clever enough to be called funny, due to its crude delivery and lack of effective punch lines. Overacting in short doses may be tolerable, but the film's full throttle approach in every scene does not work.

At least 30 minutes of the film could have been cut. Duffy used clips of the original Boondock Saints as filler to glue scenes together, and he also used cameos of ghosts killed in the last film, seemingly as filler.

Within the film, the MacManus brothers are labeled the "Saints" by the Boston media, and they continue too take down mob bosses and drug lords in fight scenes that only lack Uma Thurman to complete a Kill Bill knock off.

After a decade hiatus, Duffy delivers, but there is doubt that anyone will tip the delivery boy.