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Examples Of Vigilantism In The Bondock Saints

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Vigilantism and The Boondock Saints
Vigilante justice is the popular theme of many movies, books, television shows and other social medias. It is often portrayed as something that is both necessary and moral, in many situations where the state run legal systems have failed to serve justice to the people involved. The movie The Boondock Saints, released in 1999, written and directed by Troy Duffy, is filled with constant references to the justification of such justice.
The movie centers around two Irish brothers, Connor and Murphy McManus, who, believing that God is leading them, begin a campaign of killing against the many “evils”, in the form of mafia leaders and gang members, that occupy their hometown, Boston. Their belief in their work as the work of God is an important theme throughout the movie, which climaxes with a very public, and also seemingly wholly justified, execution of one of these perceived “evils.” They believe that they are carrying out the work of the Lord, where the sanctioned authorities, such as the FBI, have failed. Another main character in the movie is an FBI agent called Smecker. Smecker’s presence in the …show more content…

One such fallacy is a fallacy of relevance, and a common idiom: two wrongs make a right. This fallacy posits that a wrongdoing can be countered by another, similar wrongdoing, and that because of this, it is justified. This is also strengthened by an “appeal to emotion”, in which elements of the movie, including and probably most obviously, its soundtrack, manipulate the viewer into forgetting all logical and sound reasoning and finding themselves agreeing. This also happens to characters within the movie, specifically Agent Specker, who’s conversation with the Priest is an argumentum ad consequentiam, or an appeal to consequences, in that the premise that he draws a halt to the brother’s crime by doing his job would lead to the undesirable consequence of evil remaining in the

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