There’s something special about seeing a sequel 10 years after the first film was made, and finding you’re still in love with all the original characters. That for me was the experience of Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day. It stays true to the feel and fun of 1999’s Boondock Saints, but seeks to expand on the intrigue and storylines unfinished in that initial instalment.

Eight years have passed for the characters since the Brothers McManus (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus), collectively known as the Saints, first sought to right the wrongs done in Boston by killing the nefarious mobsters responsible for them. These avenging tactics came to a climax with the help of their newly-found father (Billy Conolly) when they publicly execute a mob boss in a Boston courtroom. Life on the lam in the relatively tranquil Irish pasture has done nothing to soften the brothers. When news arrives from home that a Catholic priest has been murdered in the same signature style as the Saints’, they set out to find the true guilty party to clear their name.

Most of the favourite original characters are back, but there is a wash of new ones as well. Chief among them is Special Agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), a sassy Southern lady who takes no flack while the investigation is on her watch.There’s also a bad-tempered, vertically-challenged assassin (Daniel DeSanto), and a new sidekick for the Saints named Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr). Director/Screenwriter Troy Duffy treats the audience to stylish shootout scenes (one featuring the Brothers diving nearly fourteen stories to reach a mob hideout) some excellent laugh-out-loud moments (an odd visit-from-the-dead dream), and a surprisingly sophisticated plot of betrayal, secret identity, and family guilt.

One wonders if Duffy may have been writing two separate scripts and attempted to combine them as the difference between the first 20 or 30 minutes and the rest of the film seem light-years apart in pace and feel. The film is initially sloppy and cheesy in both writing and direction with awkward and pretentious dialogue and bizarre montages with an inappropriately pop-styled soundtrack for example. But things tighten up considerably once the brothers reach Boston. Intrigue runs amok as the Saints learn how deep the murderous conspiracy is rooted. But the good-natured humour of the original film remains intact, and serves to contrast every bloody shootout and frame job.

Unhappily, there are shoddy aspects of Boondock Saints II. Production either ran low or ran out of funding as some green screen shots are rough and patchy-looking. But there are some appallingly cheesy lines (“I’m so f***ing smart, I make smart people feel like retards”) and editing techniques used (a Getting-Clean-and-Ready montage with the Brothers McManus that brings to mind a beer commercial aimed at gay men which features campy rock music and scenes of showering in the barn). There’s also the fact that almost the entirety of shots that prominently feature Romeo are uncomfortable for their political incorrectness. It is downright embarrassing to sit through an hour-and-a-half of a character who embodies every bad Mexican stereotype. He wears a wife-beater and shiny metal belt-buckle the entire time, owns a tiny car with a bad paint-job, says he can drive but cannot, and he insists on using guns decorated in the colours of the Mexican flag. Also, he has an uncle who owns a trashy-looking bar called The Silver Peso, which is really just a poorly disguised Silver Dollar Room in Toronto.

Despite its downfalls (several of them), Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day remains a fast-paced film that delivers excitement and entertainment without taking itself too seriously. This one is not a cerebral cinema, but candy for the eyes and (mostly) for the ears, too. It’s certainly not a great movie in the traditional sense, but fully enjoyable.