The movie features two Irish guys with very strong Catholic upbringing. They feel irked that there is so much evil in this world and YET there is nothing that is being done about it. They feel there is no greater evil than the indifference of the good to the evil.
There is no great story in this movie. It is about two guys getting pissed off with the mob and going around Boston killing people from the mob and earning major league brownie points from the police while doing so. This movie is phenomenal because this is the first movie that brought into the open, a homophobic homosexual. To me the best character in this movie is Willem DeFoe who plays the cop who is a homosexual. And yet he goes about places calling people a fag when they exhibit the clichéd homosexual tendencies... (ie) in most Hollywood movies, you would see the fag expressing feminine characteristics.
The 2 lead characters because Christians tend to digest ’Righteousness’ more easily if taken in with the enzyme called ’God’ administered with the help of the most devout (i.e.) the Irish. This movie became a cult hit mainly among the college going populace in America because of the blatant violence and the extreme ’slickness’ of the movie.
The key to any movie being ’slick’ and being appreciated by the average male American college goer…
1. The guys are uncommonly intelligent but are too cool about their capabilities. They never take themselves seriously
2. Have a few scenes where common utilities could be used as deadly weapons. More mundane the utility is, more popular the movie is
3. They are initially so cool that the whole world bores them. (you know… adolescents)
4. The guys are from a usually ’tough’ ethnic group. (i.e.) the Irish, the Vikings, the Russians
5. The guys are hyper tough men who can brush themselves off and walk around after having an anvil fall on their head
6. The guys kill a kitten and never have a lady interest
7. The guys keep saying cool things all the time
8. The guys make life changing decision in a matter of nano seconds
9. They drink beer like it is water and water like it is moonshine
10. They can be shot at 2 million times but will never get hit
11. When they shoot they never miss even though they have never killed a dog with a gun before
12. When they flip out they almost always cause bloodshed
13. Most of the fight sequences have very good techno music in the background
14. The characters are ’painfully real’ (i.e.) they are diametrically opposite to the Hollywood cool guys
15. They continue to evade the police/police turn a blind eye to their doings
16. The movie has an open ending where the characters never change and don’t really win anything