Those who remember Troy Duffy, the bartender whose monstrous hubris torpedoed his deal with Miramax, may suspect that the writer/director's only film is an abomination, even before popping in the DVD. Everyone else will be on board after about two minutes. Duffy's bloated self-delusions inform every inch of the catastrophe known as The Boondock Saints, a ludicrous, woebegone vigilante movie set in Boston. It's as though the most clueless hack in the business attempted to make Pulp Fiction, as it includes a pair of hitmen who read scripture to their victims, as well as an accidental hair-trigger shooting, this time involving a cat. It would be something if Duffy imitated his heroes with any style, but the film is totally artless, as poorly scripted as it is sloppily mounted. Duffy introduces the entire all-male cast through freeze frames and title cards, but that hackneyed device is the most personality any character gets, including mobsters so criminally underdeveloped, they might as well be the good guys. The Irish brothers at the film's center are indistinguishable ciphers, especially since they dress in identical shades and black jackets, the bastard descendants of Tarantino cool. In a decidedly amoral and patently unbelievable spree of violence, the pair knocks off lowlifes with nary a concern for little details like needing to avoid getting caught. The characters Duffy bothers to give identifiable traits are even worse. They consist of a long-haired idiot (David Della Rocco) forever exploding with spittle and scenery-chewing vitriol, whom the audience is supposed to find sympathetic, and a gay FBI agent played by Willem Dafoe, who condescendingly taunts the Boston police through a protracted succession of crime scenes. The mental lapse that caused Harvey Weinstein, even for a moment, to consider letting this pretender near a camera, is shameful.