The bloody path of God

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Movie
German title The bloody path of God
Original title The Boondock Saints
Country of production Canada , USA
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Troy Duffy
script Troy Duffy
production Chris Brinker
Robert N. Fried
Elie Samaha
Lloyd Segan
music Jeff Danna
camera Adam Kane
cut Bill DeRonde
occupation

The Boondock Saints (original title The Boondock Saints ; Subtitles: Missionaries of Death ) from the year 1999 is a Canadian - American black humoriger action thriller written and directed by Troy Duffy about two brothers from Boston , in supposedly divine mission vigilante exercise and become killers. Despite bad reviews, the film became a cult film . The sequel The Bloody Path of God 2 followed in October 2009 .

action

In a district of South Boston dominated by the Irish , the two Irish brothers Connor and Murphy MacManus defend themselves against some thugs of the Russian Mafia who want to close down the favorite pub of the two hard-drinking and devout Catholics on St. Patrick's Day of all times. The next day, two of the injured Russians, Connor and Murphy, visit their apartment to get revenge for the beating they suffered the day before. They handcuff Connor to the toilet and bring Murphy out of the apartment to shoot him in front of the house. However, Connor is able to free himself and save Murphy at the last second. Connor throws the torn out toilet bowl at one of the gangsters, he overpowers the second by jumping on his head from the 5th floor. After emptying the Russians' pockets, Murphy takes his unconscious brother to the hospital. The Boston police initially grope in the dark about the course of events and motives. Only with the appearance of FBI agent Paul Smecker can more light be shed on the case. The MacManus brothers decide to surrender to the police and learn from Doc, the owner of their local pub, that Agent Smecker was with him and that the act is already self-defense. The brothers are suddenly for the press and the public the Saints (Engl. Saints ) of their district.

Encouraged by this and additionally animated by a nocturnal vision, the duo feels called to fight the entire organized crime of the city of Boston. They accidentally find their first victim through the beeper stolen from the dead Russian. They organize an impressive collection of weapons, enter the suite of the Russian mafia boss Yuri Petrov through the ventilation shafts of the Copley Plaza Hotel and kill first his underbosses and bodyguards and finally himself in a kind of execution. Then they place their arms crossed on the chests of all the dead and put coins on their eyes. Before you, with u. a. With a bag full of cash, fleeing the suite from the hotel, her friend and mafia errand boy Rocco suddenly appears at the door. This seems to have received a first test from the Italian mafia boss Don Poppa Yakavetta by eliminating the Russian competitor. After a nasty joke on him, the brothers take him with them and they celebrate their success together and let Rocco know about their plans and motives, and Rocco himself expresses sympathy for them.

Agent Smecker considers the act to be the beginning of an international mafia war, but the act itself is that of a layman.

After the night, Connor and Murphy confront Rocco, believing Yakavetta planned the attack on Petrov Rocco's death. He disbelieves because he thinks he is a member of the family. He runs away and leaves the brothers in his apartment. In between he asks briefly about calls and after a while bursts into the apartment completely beside himself to pack the most necessary belongings and disappear. When asked what happened, he confesses to the two of them that he shot two young mafiosi and the mafia-affiliated operator of the Lakeview bar in broad daylight after they joked that he was still alive.

After the experience, Rocco joins the MacManus brothers. As they drive through town, Rocco sees the Mafia underboss Vincenzo Lapazzi, who was partly responsible for Rocco's suicide squad. The three ambush him in his favorite strip club and kill both him and two other guests of the club. Agent Smecker, who was only called to the strip club, is angry that the police did not also call him to the bar and because he is treading on the spot in his case.

Meanwhile, Don Yakavetta seeks help and advice from a retired ex-mafia boss, from whom he comes into contact with a legendary mobster killer. The old man advises him to be careful, as "Il Duce / the Duke" loves to kill Mafiosi and after the crime has been committed, he might not stop in front of his actual client. His only rule is "no women, no children". Yakavetta thinks it is the only solution, as Rocco knows all active hit men and headhunters.

Rocco has identified the next target for himself and the brothers: an ice-cold professional killer who does not shy away from cruelty (including killing women and children) and also acts as the headhunter of the mafia. The brothers ambush the man in his own house where he was playing poker with a few other mafiosi and kill them all. Agent Smecker summarizes the course of events in a flashback. Except for a few details, his investigation coincides with the actual course of events. Smecker assumes that the three were greeted by six heavily armed men who fired at them when they left the house. In fact, it was only one person: "Il Duce" who shot them with 6 different weapons.

The three of them can only barely escape the situation and are wounded. Agent Smecker accidentally finds a phalanx in a fit of rage that Rocco was shot down. With his help he identifies Rocco and remembers that he is connected to the MacManus brothers. Connor and Murphy also realize that Agent Smecker will soon find out about them. Unlike Rocco, they rule out his murder because he is a "good man".

Confused by his finding, Smecker gets drunk in a club on the Boston gay scene. When he stumbles out of the club in the morning, he decides to get spiritual advice in the form of a confession in the same church that the brothers are visiting for morning prayer. Rocco, who is also watching Smecker's confession, pushes himself into the confessional near the priest and urges him at gunpoint to answer Smecker as the brothers would like. This confirms Agent Smecker in his belief that the deeds committed are right and even necessary, and decides to help them from now on.

Murphy and Connor call Smecker shortly afterwards and tell him about the killer who was waiting for them at the house and that he should be found before he finds the brothers again. They want to take care of Don Yakavetta before they leave for New York.

From the same ex-Mafioso who also helped Yakavetta, Smecker learns about the Duke and that the family is afraid of Rocco because he knows everyone very well. Also that Yakavetta has holed up with his best men in his villa to ambush them.

In the villa the mafiosi get hold of the three and try to find out their secrets and motives through torture. They find out that Rocco is not the leader of the group as suspected, but “only” a follower. Since he is also a traitor to his own family, Don Yakavetta shoots him personally. Although the three are arrested, the bodyguards are nervous that the Duke is now at large. Yakavetta flees the city and leaves the men behind. Agent Smecker enters the villa disguised as a prostitute. He manages to kill two men before being knocked unconscious by Il Duce.

In the basement, Murphy and Connor are able to free themselves from their bonds, switch off their guard and pray their family prayer for Rocco. After the professional killer enters the scene and has said the two of them family prayer for Rocco, it turns out that he is the father of the brothers. Thereupon he allies himself with his sons.

A few weeks later, Yakavetta is on trial, the outcome of which is almost certain in his favor. Agent Smecker and three Boston detectives, who were investigating previous murders, give father and sons access to the courtroom. They stage the execution of the accused in front of the entire court and explain their motives to them.

Subsequently, in the last scene, people are shown on television who, when asked by a team of reporters, express their opinion on the "Saints" .

Age rating and publishing issues

The film is not used in Germany in the cinemas and was released in 2000 as a so-called video premiere , by the company Columbia TriStar Home Video provisionally only as VHS - Rental version on the label Helkon published. The version, which was around 104 minutes long and was widely regarded as uncut, had no age rating from the FSK and was therefore only allowed to be rented or sold to adults and was classified as unobjectionable under criminal law in an expert report by the SPIO's Jurist Commission (JK) . Since April 2001 the film has been on the index , among other things because it glorifies vigilante justice. It took another two years for Columbia to release an identical version of the film on DVD. In June 2012, the film was removed from the index after eleven years. During the re-examination, the uncut version was approved by the FSK from the age of 18.

reception

The film received rather poor reviews. The film website Rotten Tomatoes states that only 5 out of 25 film reviews examined are positive, which corresponds to a rating of 20%.

“Troy Duffy wrote and staged a mixture of gangster ballad, thriller and farce, which is sometimes quite bloody and convinces not only with the unusual story, but above all with the many funny details. This is absolutely fun entertainment: good gags, rough shooting - sometimes a bit implausible - and grotesque situations in this modern version of the 'Three Musketeers' provide entertainment. Particularly good: Willem Dafoe as an eccentric FBI man. "

- prism

“A carefully developed crime thriller staged with finesse that comes up with suspense and good actors. With the escalating willingness to use violence on the part of the two avengers and their progressive 'secularisation', the film is approaching the genre swamp of vigilante gagging. "

- Lexicon of international film

backgrounds

  • The budget for the film was about $ 6 million. The film was shot from August 10th to September 26th, 1998 in Boston (including on Longfellow Bridge ) and in Toronto .
  • The film premiered on August 4, 1999 at the Fantasy Film Festival in Munich.
  • Contrary to popular belief, Rocco didn't meet Troy Duffy as a child, but in a bar in Los Angeles. According to Rocco (in a radio interview), the age difference between the two would have been too great.
  • Troy Duffy not only wrote and directed the first film, but also part of the soundtrack. His band, which is called The Boondock Saints just like the film , played the titles "Holy Fool" and "Pipes" for the film. Besides Troy Duffy, members of the band are his brother Taylor and their two friends Gordon "Gordie" Clark and Jimi Jackson. The band members have a brief appearance in the film.
  • The tattoos on the forefingers of the two mean VERITAS (lat .: "truth") and AEQUITAS (lat .: "equality").
  • In the list of actors, a certain Bob Marley is listed as the actor of detective Greenly. This is an actor who bears the same name as the late reggae musician Marley .
  • The soundtrack is called "The Blood of Cú Chulainn " and was composed by Mychael Danna and his brother Jeff .

influence

Parts of the film have been quoted by musicians on various occasions. The American bands A Day to Remember (in the song "1958") and Aiden (in the album version of the song World By Storm ) as well as the Norwegian music project Combichrist (in the song Today I Woke to the Rain of Blood ) use excerpts from the courtroom scene, the German band Forever It Shall Be (in the song Flatline ) used the scene in which the Rocco brothers explain the reason for their actions. A monologue by Smecker can also be heard in the intro of the song Hate Song by the German group Nargaroth . In their song Faustrecht, the German band Feindflug uses several samples from the film dialogues and Bleeding Through uses Agent Smecker's monologue about the Boondock Saints' first meeting with their father as an intro for their song Love Lost in a Hale of Gunfire , as well as an intro for Revenge I Seek . Also Milking the Goatmachine used in their song Ding Dong a sample from the sequel to the film. The Dutch DJ Headhunterz uses the MacManus' family prayer in his song The Sacrifice . Furthermore, several excerpts from the original version in the song Das Grauen from the German music project Reaper are used. In his 2008 mixtape “God's bloody path”, the rapper Marc Reis not only borrowed the name from the film, but also uses various quotes from the German version.

Web links

Wikiquote: The Bloody Path of God  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for The Bloody Path of God . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2012 (PDF; test number: 84 322-a V).
  2. ^ Roger Ebert's review
  3. ↑ Removed from the index on schnittberichte.com
  4. ^ Rottentomatoes.com, accessed June 11, 2011
  5. ↑ The bloody path of God at prisma-online.de, accessed on June 11, 2011
  6. ↑ The Bloody Path of God. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ Boondock Saints . In: boxofficemojo.com . Retrieved December 28, 2006.