Movie Anal-ysis!

Okay so we have the 8 page essay do on friday. Thats in TWO DAYS!!! So I was really confident when I first picked my movie and focusing question, but as the days went by and we did more and more assignments on it, I’m starting to feel less and less confident. I feel like I’ve lost my paper, not literally. If you were to ask me what my paper is about I would stumble around for a bit until you gave me that confused glare and finaly submit, “I don’t know”. I’m not sure where I want my paper to go and I definately don’t want or think my paper is going to make an important statement. I have also hit a solid block, belonging to writers, and the fact that I’m tired and extremly medicated due to a current ailment that has struck me I feel unable or willing to think and am extremly stressed due to the fact that I have to organize and research this paper as well as write it and study and do homework for my other two classes all involving the one thing I’m currently incapable of doing, thinking. I spent my time at breakfast with my calculator doing the math of what this paper is going to set me back if I fail to complete it, probably not the right area to focus on. I feel as if the previous essays I have turned in for this assignment are of no to little use to me and that I’m going to have to write a subpar paper which irritates me. I don’t feel ready for this paper and can’t wait for this quarter to be over so that this stress will finally be off my sholders. After two wars and countless combat missions I’ve felt more constant stress this quarter then the two and a half years I spent in the middle east.

   My thesis at the begining of this assignment was: Is the movie Boondock Saints society’s view of vigilantism. As I wrote more and more on this topic and did more and more research I started to see a pattern with movies in general. I noticed that movies are often used to make society aware of a problem and to effect us on an emotional level which in turn attaches us to that problem emotionally. Movies like Erin Brokovich, Boondock Saints, Brave One, Blood Diamond these movies are about a big problem that society as a whole or a smaller society somewhere else is facing: Crime, corporate America’s lack of moral obligation, and funding masacures through illegal trade. We see the attempt of these movies to show that their views are societies views, for example Boondock Saints ending in a interview mode asking society what they think of the “Saints”, which most say they agree with. Erin Brokovich brings about the problem of corporate America poisoning a small community, killing many just to cut costs, then using its lawyers to get away with it. We see that media is constantly used to express peoples views and to attract people to a cause. We hear it in music: Tupac’s “Changes”, Marvin Gay’s “Whats going on?”, and Bob Dylan’s “License to kill”, so why not expect it in film. Movies gross millions of dollars in a couple of days, so it would be crazy not to use movies to attract the masses.

  Bud Valley wrote an article about teh movie Boondock Saints and how it portrays vigilantism. Bud simply talks about how the movie glorifies vigilantism as heroic, he goes thorugh scenes and quotes from the film and ties them into how they support his thesis. From this article I get the sense that he in fact agrees with vigilantism and thinks that it is a neccesity in todays society.

   Well Bud I think you are wrong. I will fist comend you for a very well writen artcle that does have a lot of insight into the film and how it portrays vigilantes. I think that your personal view of vigilantes has skewed your ability to write an unbiased article. I believe that everybody writes a paper with a little bias in it but you have taken scenes and quotes out of contex and left out important dialogue to support your thesis. Your article focuses on the thought that it is trying to show the world that vigilantism is okay, you do point out a few scenes that show how vigilantism is a slippery slope. I feel you fail to see what this movie really is. When Troy Duffy wrote this film it was because he had just witnessed a dead women getting wheeled out of the drug dealers apartment across from his; she was dead for a couple of days and the drug dealer runs up and takes what he says was his money off the “Bitch’s” body. This movie is Troy’s venting of his frustrations with the crim that is all around him (like lots of americans). Through out this film I see a battle between pro and con vigilantism. Although frusturated I believe Troy still saw the fact that there is two sides to this view. This is clearly made appearant at the end of the film when all the citizens of boston are asked how they feel about the Saints, and there are view of both sides and some who wish not to say. Also throughout the film the McManus brothers themselves doubt what they are doing, and the priest that Agent Smecker talks to is completly ata loss for words when confronted with the question “is it okay?” he says that it is never okay to kill and God would never tell you to do that and at the same time he says that the laws of God are above the laws of man, the priest gives views for both sides of the argument of killing for good…good? I liked your article and will use you as a source in my paper but I do not agree with everyting you have said and believe that you have left out details to make your article stronger.

 At the beginning of Boondock Saints the two Irish brothers are at church. While at church the Monsignor starts to tell the parish a story about a lady named Kitty, who 30 years ago was stabed to death in public calling for help, but nobody went to help her, everybody just watched as her killer wiped the blood off his knife on her lifeless body and simply walked away.

   I chose this scene because it tells a story of an uspeakable crime that people witnessed, yet the killer walked away. The Monsignor talks about how we must fear evil, but we must fear the indifference of the good more, because that indifference is what allows evil to exists. I am writting about vigilante justice and how this movie is the view of peoples desire for vigilante justice. Not everybody is going to be a vigilante but this scene tells the frustration of the Monsignor that the killer got away and that there were so many witnesses that did nothing. After leaving the church as this story is completed the two Irish brothers, who become vigilantes, look at each other and say “I believe he has a point”(Boondock Saints).

    Now this whole movie is packed with scenes that portray vigilantism and then there is that scene at the end when everbody is talking about vigilatism and how they feel about it, which would have been a good one, but I chose this one because it seems to get the emotion of vigilantism. The sheer anger, frustration, and feeling of helplessness that ultimately drives some people to taking matters into thier own hands.