Word: plot
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...Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, the election of President Nixon, the presence and fear of communism, and the eventual death of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from a more cynical perspective than the history books. His account of the era orients the readers in the plot and leaves them with a true sense of the anger, both righteous and profane, that highlighted the period. Ellroy’s distinctive style—the brief, spare syntax reminiscent of hardboiled detective fiction—sets a dark tone for the novel and lends itself to this retelling...
Left with an absurd amount of plot leeway, “All Saints Day” busies itself engaging in a self-referential elevation of campiness. While a great deal of the humor in the original hinged upon the brothers’ bungled attempts to recreate old action movie scenes, “All Saints Day” makes a conscious attempt to churn out fantastically outlandish fight scenes and hard-boiled, quotable one-liners. Murphy kicks off a killing campaign by cheekily remarking to his brother, “Let’s do some gratuitous violence...
Unlike their first foray into vengeance killings, however, Connor and Murphy enjoy the luxury of local celebrity in “All Saints Day,” allowing them to pick off their targets with unusual ease. As a result, the plot manages to coast along with nary a conflict. En route to the states, they encounter Romeo (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a raucous co-worker with loose ties to the underworld, who risks life and limb to join the Saints crew, perhaps intuiting the sidekick position left vacant by Rocco’s death in the first film. Stateside...
...Boondock Saints’ in any way.” While “All Saints Day” does nothing to mar the original, it does little to distinguish itself from it. Rife with humorous references to the 1999 film, it tends to recycle plot in favor of creating well-choreographed shoot-outs with slick dialogue. Still, Duffy’s greatest fears have not been actualized, as the second round of his Catholicized bloodbath is just as much fun as the first. It just might take a while for everyone else to realize...
...Saw” franchise has chewed through writers, directors, characters, and plot devices with the inhuman precision of one of John Kramer’s grisly traps. The formula is so powerful (read: profitable) that it exists outside any single creative mind; it is clearly a product of a studio, rather than an author. The latest installment shows that while “Saw’s” appetite for mutilation and dismemberment is unlimited, its supply of original material...