By Josh Noem
"Boondock Saints" is so old that detective Paul Smecker, who solves cases by listening to classical music, uses a CD-playing Walkman at the scene of the crime. Believe it or not, you guys, a decade ago the iPod was a pipedream.
It is also a movie that was created in a pre-9/11 world. There is no way that a movie about murdering religious zealots gets anywhere near a producer's desk these days. (Correction: "Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" seems to have hit the DVD shelf this year.)
Those are two strikes against it already. Throw in that it is in the ranks of the worst movies made in the past 20 years and you have a strikeout. I'm talking worse (though not as long, praise the Lord) as "Four Feathers." Even worse than any number of Kevin Costner films, excepting "Field of Dreams," of course, and half of "For Love of the Game."
Yet somehow, this lemon endures in the popular culture on campus. Students from Shipstad to Schoenfeldt claim it is one of their favorite movies. And they are not saying they like it in a campy way. They mean it.
How can a cut-rate, poorly acted, 10 year-old movie with a shallow plot (that's being generous) still be popular here?
I have a theory. And it has more to do with UP than two Irish brothers who wear rosaries around their necks and fill mobsters with bullet holes.
I think that the UP campus culture is fascinated by the image of working-class, pious Catholic young men who are so devoted to their faith that they will follow with blazing guns wherever they see it leading them. I think students on campus are captivated by the example of a strong, active, robust, take-no-crap, put-it-all-on-the-line Catholic faith that says, "Take THAT bad guys! God is tired of your bad guy-ness."
It is easy to have a soft impression of Catholicism, or of Christianity in general. It is a way of life that asks us to have an interior life, to be self-reflective and self-giving. Love your enemies, even. And if a typical student's experience of Catholicism on campus stays at the level of attending the occasional Mass, well, there may not be much they find there to contradict that impression.
I would submit that Christianity would only seem soft to someone who has the shallow and passing familiarity with the faith that the movie manifests. (You don't wear rosaries, okay?!)
Talk to any of your peers who are leaders of the faith community on campus. Ask them if Christianity is easy. Ask them if maintaining self-discipline to lead a moral life is soft. Ask them if feeding a hungry stranger and asking them for their story on a Friday night is spineless. Ask if abstaining from pre-marital sex is weak. Ask a senior if finding and following God's will for their lives after graduation is simple. Ask them if loving their enemies, or even forgiving a friend, is cowardly.
I think what you'll hear is that Christianity asks everything of them.
The gratuitous violence in the movie, I think, is an expression of yearned-for justice. And it is distributed by no-nonsense men with a destiny ordained by God and a world-view imbued with faith. These guys see the world through the lens of their faith and what they see disturbs them. So they take matters into their own hands.
The challenge for us who claim to be Christians is the same. We have a destiny ordained by God and if we see the world with our faith, we'll be motivated to do something about it, too. When you take matters into your own hands, though, just be sure to pick up a bowl of soup instead of four Glocks.
Josh Noem works in the office
of Campus Ministry
