• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  
• Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
• Resolution: 1080p/24
  
• Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
  
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
  
• Region: A (Region-Locked)
  
• Rating: R
  
• Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x Digital Copy)
  
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
  
• Blu-ray Release Date: June 14, 2011
  
• List Price: $29.99

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BestBuy.com:

Purchase The Boondock Saints: Truth & Justice Edition on Blu-ray at CD Universe

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Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG  thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

[Rating:4/5]

This 1999 film was swept under the rug by the tragic circumstances surrounding the Columbine school shootings, the public and Hollywood executives deeming the film too violent and controversial given the political climate at the time. Nevertheless, The Boondock Saints garnered an underground audience and writer/director Troy Duffy’s film is now one of those beloved cult classics renowned for its violence.

Truth be told, The Boondock Saints is much more than violence, it is a campy, pulpy crime/action film with over-the-top performances and comic book-like characters. Yes, it can be looked upon as a poor man’s attempt at a Tarantino movie, but that, I think, would be completely missing the point. This whole film wreaks of tongue-in-cheek self-parody and ironic commentary on popular culture.

The story revolves around two fraternal twins, the Irish brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) MacManus living in Boston who decide to kill off all the mobsters and bad people in their city, with the help of their bungling friend, a low-level Italian Mafia go-for named Rocco (David Della Rocco). Their reign of bloody terror on the city’s bad guys puts them in the sights of the relentless FBI agent Smecker (Willem Defoe), who won’t stop until he finds out who they are and tracks them down.

It’s silly, it’s bloody, it’s funny, and it’s good fun.

Video Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

I don’t know that Boondock Saints will ever look great, but I have certainly seen films of even much older vintage than this one come to Blu-ray looking far better than this. The 2.35:1 AVC/MPEG-4 1080p encodement of Boondock Saints is middling at best. There isn’t a lot of nuance in this presentation, it either looks good, or it looks bad. Grain levels are all over the place, and source damage is an issue in many places as well. Black levels aren’t quite where they should be either.

Audio Quality

[Rating:3.5/5]

Even this DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is lackluster sounding almost reprocessed, more than anything completely discrete. There is some crackle to be heard in the sound effects, but mostly they are propped up by a good bit of low frequencies – the gunshots pack a lot of punch, so to speak. Surround channels are mostly filled with some ambience, when they are audible.

Supplemental Materials

[Rating:3/5]

Two audio commentaries, an HD featurette featuring a roundtable with the actors and filmmaker and both Theatrical and Director’s Cuts of the film plus digital copy make for a decent enough package, include the added standard definition outtakes and deleted scenes and The Boondock Saints: Truth & Justice Edition is certainly worth the price of admission.

The supplements provided with this release are:

• Commentary with Director Troy Duffy
• Commentary with Actor Bill Connolly
• The Boondock Saints – The Film and the Phenomenon (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 0:28.56)
• Outtakes (1.33:1; 480i/60; 0:01.32)
• Theatrical Trailer (1.33:1; 480i/60)
• Deleted Scenes (1.33:1; 480i/60)
• Theatrical & Director’s Cut
• Digital Copy

The Definitive Word

Overall:

[Rating:3.5/5]

Will The Boondock Saints win any awards for filmmaking? Probably not, but this is still a worthy time waster. I only wish that the transfer to Blu-ray were a stronger one from Fox.

Additional Screen Captures

–

[amazon-product]B004ULNJGM[/amazon-product]

BestBuy.com:

Purchase The Boondock Saints: Truth & Justice Edition on Blu-ray at CD Universe

Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com

Overall
[Rating:3.5/5]
The Film
[Rating:4/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]

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