Ah, the holidays. The perfect time to sit around with family and catch up on some flicks. Which was exactly what I did! This time around however, I set my dad up with access to my Netflix Instant account on his Nintendo Wii and well…he couldn’t be happier. Since dad’s an action sort of guy and I had yet to have seen the Boondock Saints, it seemed like a great way to break in the service for him. Turns out, that was a good hunch!

The Boondock Saints – I honestly can’t tell you why I put this movie off for so long. I think it suffered a bit from the “Lebowski” syndrome; I watched about 10 minutes once and just didn’t get it. So I shut it off. Much like the “Lebowski”, now that I got myself to sit through it once, I freaking loved it! Flanery and Reedus were both great and the movie had a healthy sense of humor as well as a nice little world built around it where these two could roll around Boston doling out their own sense of judgment.

What about Willem Dafoe you ask? The man is completely and utterly creepy and it shoes here in this movie. That’s what makes him such a great actor though! The way they introduced him as quirky at first and progressively made him spiral more and more into darkness and oddity was great.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day – Now; I know a lot of die hard fans hated this sequel. For my viewing the morning after watching the first? I didn’t mind it at all. The story continued on well without feeling like a forced plot turn and the brothers were on par as normal. I would have hoped for more of Billy Connolly this time around, but you don’t always get what you want. On the other side of the coin, I myself enjoyed the inclusion of Julie Benz though her southern accent was a bit…grating. She copped off of Dafoe’s investigation style a bit too much as well and her flair for stiletto heels was a bit weird too. But, she did all right. She looked pretty great in her cowgirl duds too!

Assault on Precinct 13 – I’m a Carpenter fan. I think he has a lot of great flicks. Definitely some classics. “Assault of Precinct 13″ isn’t one of them however. I had seen the remake some time ago and I thought it was all right for an action movie. I always like to see the originals when I can for a good comparison and well…it just doesn’t add up for me. Mind you, the acting is okay and the plot is pretty close to the remake. My problems lie in the dreadfully slow pacing and what seems like tons of wasted time in scenes. In what feels like a full minute, we watch as Ethan Bishop saunters slowly down the sidewalk to his patrol car and then fumbles with his keys as he gets ready to start his shift. Next, we watch for what feels like minutes as he drives through the city. The movie is full of scenes like that that linger on for too long and feel like filler. For myself, this leads to disappointment and boredom which is never good in an action movie.