In the film Boondock Saints, the story telling technique is the one of the most important elements. Troy duffy uses unique and ecclectic ways to show us the story, and sticks to neither of the industry standards of either a straightforward plor or the typical way to show crim movies. He creatively uses the sequencing of the events and the ways they are shown to us to give us insight into the development of the characters, to keep us interested in the plot and to keep us engaged by it, and to entertain us.
Firstly, the story is told so in a way that we know only limited things at certain times, which keeps us thinking about the plot. The story is based around the killing of various mobsters and various other men undesireable to society by two brothers with religious intent, as well as their somewhat misguided friend Rocco. The other part of the story deals with a detective and his investigations of the brothers' crimes. The plot frequently switches between the investigation and the killings, usually showing the killings by the investigation first and then moving back in sequence to the crime itself. One thing this does is allow us to anticipate the exciting scenes we know are coming. We see detective Smecker analying a scene and we start thinking about it as he does. As he tries to peice it togther, we as viewers are trying to figure out what exactly happened here. As Smecker puts the crime together, we understand it more and also want to see where he is correct and where he misinterpreted something. The first killings the brothers commit are in self defense, and we see the scene after it happens when they are being interrogated by detective Smecker. This sets up the pattern that is used throughout most of the movie, and from now on we expect to see these killings after we are shown the crime scene. In fact whenever the movie cuts from the investigation to the killings, the screen flashes white and we cut back in time.
