I have read a lot of posts on this site, some good, some outright stupid. But I still see no mention of symbolism, especially religious symbolism. Is it just me or was Conner bleeding from his head and hands when lifting the toilet? Hmm, that couldn't be the wounds of Christ, now could it? Does Rocco really look quite a bit like what we picture Christ as looking like, especially right before Pappa Joe shoots him? When the water is falling on the brothers in the jail, where is it coming from? A cross in the ceiling? No this can't be right...Is Troy Duffy a genius...no these are all accidents. He didn't intend for any of this. I know he couldn't have meant for there to be three Saints. Not like there is a Holy Trinity or anything like that. The brothers fall through the ceiling, hanging upside down, with there arms spread out and there legs together, there wasn't possibly one of the saints from the bible that was cruicfied upside down was there? Now, while you all choose to argue over some Latin mispellings and fight with a critic over his opinions (GUESS WHAT, THAT'S WHAT HE GETS PAID FOR!) Why don't you sit down and actually watch the movie sometime? Why don't you try to see past the obvious and see what he intended for you to see. Or is that just too much to ask of you all?

I think you hit it on the head 100%. All of those things were seen by me - but i'm not sure about the majority of the viewers. That symbolism can either seen, ignored, or just missed completely - and the movie was made 100 times better with all of those "hidden" messages.

SYMBOLOGY IS A WORD, SO WILLEM DAFOE IS RETARDED!

Yes, but it's a matter of context. Symbology being (I believe) the study of symbols. The word the guy was looking for was symbolism (the meaning behind the symbols).

The English language is a beautiful thing. Learn it.

Isnt it great when someone is trying to seem smater than they are by trying to prove someone else wrong but wind up being totaly wrong themselves.

What does Willem Dafoe have to do with a script he was told to read anyway?

Ah DITTO to that

but also what do all "the hidden message" have to do with a movie??

Makes me wonder if you didnt look a bit too hard at a thing that was made for entertaintment.

This is not too insult or anything but that just sounded a bit "looking to hardfor a deeper meaning ".

Its a movie, we enjoy watching it and that is where it ends. No referances to the bible needed, no deeper meaning searched..... Seriously I ve seen the movie a load off times. But I refuse to see things that aren't there.

I think the person has a point. There are quite a few hidden meanings... now while you might say that they're looking into it too much, the meanings behind those hidden meanings are actually important.

Now, I'd noticed the hand bleeding-wounds of Christ, the water dripping from a cross shaped crack and the three saints-Holy Trinity connections before... but I've never made a connection between Rocco and the Jesus image and the upside-down crucification.

Personally, I think that there are most likely certain hidden messages that Duffy really did put in there on purpose. Like the water dripping (baptism!) and possibly the wounds of Christ. The Holy Trinity might be looking a bit to hard into it... and I'm going to guess that the other two are just coincidences.



Then again, I'm not Troy Duffy and I have no idea what goes on in his head. ^_^

Yea, I those messages were pretty obvious, the whole baptism thing & the fact that there were three blah blah blah, but I, like Dray didn't put the whole Rocco/Jesus thing together....Prolly 'cause I was too busy perving on Norman Reedus!! :P

i can see the symbolism i mean them breaking three or more of the ten commandments is really good i mean seriusly those were by total accident

A movie entitled the boondock SAINTS and some people are arguing that there is no religious symbolism in it? Come on! Directors plan these things out in order to help the viewer infer certain things about the movie. For example the whole are they good or evil thing. It would seem by the symbolism that Troy Duffy's attitude toward his characters is that they are good. I agree that there is sometimes overreading, or searching for symbols that aren't there, but to completely write off a director's intentions as coincidental is ignorant. True, not everyone will get the symbolism, but in a movie where ethics is continually contemplated, you better believe there is some symbolism.