Robert N. Fried

This film opens with mass in a Boston Catholic church, where Irish American fraternal twin brothers Connor McManus (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy McManus (Norman Reedus) pray while a sermon is read, mentioning Kitty Genovese, a real-life crime victim brutally murdered while her neighbors watched without intervening. As the priest begins his homily, the brothers approach the altar and kiss the feet of a crucifix. They depart as the priest reminds the congregation that they should fear not just evil but also the "indifference of good men". The brothers conclude that the priest finally understands, Connor stating, "I do believe the Monsignor's finally got the point..." and Murphy replying, "Aye". Connor and Murphy work at a local meatpacking plant. While celebrating St. Patrick's Day in a neighborhood bar, three Russian "soldiers", led by Ivan Checkov, enter and order everyone to leave, as their organization has decided to evict the pub. In the ensuing bar brawl, Connor, Murphy, and the patrons publicly humiliate the mobsters, who the next day ambush the brothers in their home. As Murphy is dragged into a nearby alley to be executed, Connor escapes to the roof and drops a toilet, along with himself, off the roof and onto the mobsters, killing them and rescuing Murphy. The Russian mob's involvement summons FBI agent Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe) to the murder case, and he surmises that the mobsters' death was not a professional hit but self-defense. As the police begin a manhunt for the killers, Connor and Murphy arrive at the police station to clear their names. During the initial interrogation, the brothers impress Smecker with their multilingualism (including Gaelic, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, and German) while recalling the specifics of the bar fight and subsequent self-defense the next morning. Smecker believes their story and allows them to stay overnight in a holding cell to evade the press. That night, Connor and Murphy receive a vision from God telling them to destroy all that is evil so that which is good may flourish. The brothers resolve to rid Boston of "evil men" with the help of their friend and former mob package boy David "The Funnyman" Della Rocco (David Della Rocco). The brothers trade in the weapons and valuables stolen from the mobsters' bodies for their own, and use Connor's knowledge of Russian to locate a meeting between Russian syndicate bosses at a local hotel. Crashing into the room through an overhead air duct, the brothers draw their guns and fire, killing the 8 underbosses. Forcing the leader, Yuri 'Big Man' Petrova (Victor Pedtrchenko) to his knees, the brothers recite a short prayer: "And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, That our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee And teeming with souls shall it ever be. In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spirits Sancti." The two then execute him, placing pennies over his eye sockets, in which both of his eyes were shot out. While the brothers are preparing to leave the hotel, they are surprised to find Rocco dressed as a bellboy knocking at the door with a tray of food. They decide "to fuck with him" and pull him into the hotel room, concealing their identity with masks, and threaten to execute him. Eventually they reveal their identity to Rocco, who decides to join the brothers in their mission. Once again, Agent Smecker is brought to the front of the murder case. The fact that all the killings involved the Russian Mob leads Smecker to the theory that the executions were the result of the feud between the Russian and Italian mobs. The following day, the brothers try to convince Rocco that he was sold out by Italian mob boss Papa Joe Yakavetta (Carlo Rota), because he was sent to the hotel with a six-shooter .38 revolver despite the fact there were nine mobsters in the hotel room. Rocco soon realizes this after killing two of Yakavetta's men at a deli later on, who hint to Rocco that he really was sold out. In retaliation, Rocco and the brothers hunt down and kill Vincenzo Lipazzi (Ron Jeremy), underboss of the Yakavetta crime family at a local strip club. Also killed at the Strip Club are two street criminals with no connection to organized crime (thus disproving Smecker's mob war theory). The three vigilantes proceed on a series of increasingly violent missions, cleansing the city of vicious criminals and others who have eluded justice. Papa Joe, believing that the mob killings are an act of revenge from Rocco for setting him up to be killed, contracts the infamous contract killer Il Duce (Billy Connolly), to deal with the vengeful package boy. Rocco insists that he and the brothers murder a hitman that Rocco had briefly worked with. According to Rocco, the man was responsible for murdering an entire family and had burnt their remains in a dumpster. They head to the hitman's house and murder all of his men. After a hand-to-hand fight, Rocco beats the hitman to death with a cue ball. As they leave the hitman's house through the front door, the trio is ambushed by Il Duce, and in the resulting shootout the trio manage to chase Il Duce away. Rocco's finger is shot off and each of the brothers receive serious, but not mortal, gunshot wounds which they cauterize with a hot iron. Hours later at the crime scene, Smecker discovers the finger and secretly takes it to conduct his own investigation. Discovering that it belongs to Rocco, whom he previously met, Smecker begins to unravel the mystery surrounding the various murders. His sympathy for the brothers conflicting with his professional desire to bring them to justice, Smecker (a flamboyant homosexual) goes on a drinking binge at a gay bar before seeking advice from a nearby Catholic church. Bemoaning the futility of the courts that fail to punish evil men and his uncertainty with the MacManus brothers' actions in a confessional, Smecker is oblivious to the fact that Rocco, who has tracked Smecker to the church, is forcefully directing the priest's responses to preserve the Boondock Saints' identities. Connor sees Rocco follow the priest into the confessional and, disgusted with the blasphemy, pulls Rocco's head through the other confessional at gun point. In whispered tones, Rocco tries to explain to Connor the circumstance while still holding his gun to the priest's head. Smecker is advised, reluctantly by the priest, that the Saints are acting as messengers from God and that "the laws of God are greater than the laws of man." Inspired by the advice, Smecker decides to help the brothers. The McManus brothers and Rocco infiltrate the Yakavetta headquarters to finish off the family, but are captured by Papa Joe and his henchmen who recently arrived to protect Papa Joe from such an attack. Papa Joe executes Rocco to intimidate the brothers. The brothers manage to free themselves and tend to Rocco while Smecker, disguised as a female prostitute, distracts the other mobsters. Smecker kills the remaining mobsters only to be knocked unconscious by Il Duce who mistakes Smecker for a woman. As the brothers say their family prayer over Rocco, Il Duce arrives and sneaks up behind them. As he hears them recite the family prayer, and upon seeing that the man he was hired to kill (Rocco) is dead, he lowers his weapons and joins them. It becomes apparent that Il Duce is their long-lost father, as the brothers had previously refused to teach Rocco the prayer because it is only passed down in their family. He then joins them in their mission to rid the city of evildoers. Three months later Papa Joe is sent to trial, and though there seems to be enough evidence to convict him, the reporters on scene anticipate his acquittal due to his Gotti-esque charisma. The trial is forcibly interrupted when the two brothers and Il Duce, aided by Agent Smecker and several police officers, infiltrate and lock down the courtroom. The three then publicly declare their mission to destroy evil and recite their prayer one last time, killing Papa Joe with several bullets (and a shotgun blast) to the back of the head. The media dubs the three "Saints", and the movie ends with various "man-on-the-street" interviews in which various Boston citizens reflect on the question "Are the Saints ultimately good, or evil?"

After playing with a Ouija board with her brother Larry, 11-year-old Faith Corvatch becomes convinced that her soulmate, the man she is destined to be with, is named "Damon Bradley." This belief is strengthened when a few years later a carnival fortune teller tells her that "Damon Bradley" is the name of the man she will marry. But the fortune teller also says that a person makes their own destiny. Fourteen years later, Faith (Marisa Tomei) is a teacher at a Catholic school and is engaged to a podiatrist Dwayne (John Benjamin Hickey). Faith is still slightly hesitant and is not fully sure that Dwayne is her life partner. Faith's sister-in-law Kate is not respected by her husband Larry. Larry has no passion for Kate, and only sees her as a glorified house help. Kate hates it when Larry patronizing her by calling her "doll". Faith is depressed when she is asked to wear her future mother-in-law's wedding gown, which is very old fashioned. Kate tells Faith that life is not "Happily Ever After" as sold by everybody. 10 days before their wedding, Faith gets a call from her fiance's high-school classmate Damon Bradley. Faith is shocked and feels this is destiny, but Damon is flying to Venice that day. Determined to meet him, Faith follows his trail with her sister-in-law Kate (Bonnie Hunt) from Pittsburgh through to Venice. They reach the hotel where Doman is staying only to find that he has already checked out. They search Damon's room to figure out that he had left for Rome and go after him by renting a car. Kate cannot read the Italian maps and the ladies are lost in the Italian countryside with their car out of gas. A group of nuns passing by provides them some gas. They reach an address in Rome, where Damon had called before leaving Venice, and meet a woman named Anna (Barbara Cupisti) who was supposed to meet Damon that evening. Anna now has a prior commitment and Faith offers to take her place instead. This is where Kate meets a suave Italian named Giovanni. They finally reach a street-side restaurant in Rome, but they never quite catch up with him. At the restaurant, Faith and Kate wait for Damon and find that he is one of the booths. Before Faith can meet him, Damon walks away, and Faith runs after him and loses her shoe. Faith meets a young American man but has no interest until he identifies himself as Damon Bradley. The man had approached Faith with her missing shoe and learns from Kate that Faith is looking for a man whose name she read off a Ouija board when she was 11 years old. They spend a romantic evening together and fall hopelessly in love. Then he reveals that his actual name is Peter Wright (Robert Downing Jr), so she angrily leaves him and prepares to fly back home. Meanwhile, a suave Italian businessman named Giovanni (Joaquim De Almeida) has been wooing Kate. Kate reveals that Larry cheated on her. Peter convinces Kate that meeting Faith was destiny for him too. He was not supposed to be in Italy, as he works in Boston. He was a last-minute replacement for a co-worker who got measles. And he ran into Faith at the Piazza. Peter says that Faith and he were supposed to find each other. The next morning, Peter tells Faith that he searched for Damon overnight and discovered that he has moved on to Positano. Giovanni agrees to drive the three Americans there. At a posh hotel, Faith meets Damon, a good-looking playboy, and invites him to dinner. Peter spies on them at the restaurant until Damon makes unwelcome sexual advances with Faith. It turns out that this "Damon" is really a friend of Peter's who has helped Peter stage the entire scene. Back in the United States, Larry (Fisher Stevens) finds out that his wife Kate is in Italy. He travels there to find her while Kate and Faith are again planning to return home. Larry arrives in time to make up with Kate. He also reveals to her that Faith's childhood "Damon Bradley" phenomenon was a prank: Larry intentionally spelled out the name on the Ouija board, then he paid the fortune teller to tell Faith that her true love had the same name. He hasn't told Faith the truth because he has been afraid, she would never speak to him again. Faith and Peter are at the airport when they hear Damon Bradley paged. At the information desk, they finally meet Damon (Adam LeFevre), who is not especially handsome. Peter explains to Damon why Faith has been following him. He also tells Damon that he (Peter) is in love with her, then boards his flight home to Boston. Damon asks Faith if she loves Peter. She realizes that she does and rushes to join Peter on his plane. The airport staff delays the flight until Faith can board. She and Peter embrace and kiss as the passengers and crew applaud. Their plane then flies into the sunset.

Charlie McKenzie (Mike Myers) is a beat poet living in San Francisco, after having broken up with yet another girl based on paranoid perception. His policeman friend Tony tries to point out the pattern; that Charlie simply is afraid of commitment and tries to think of, or invent, any reason to break up with someone. Things pick up again when Charlie meets a butcher named Harriet and becomes infatuated instantly. After a while of driving near her workplace, he goes in and volunteers to help her out that day, and eventually a date ensues that evening, with him learning various factoids about her. He learns she used to live in Atlantic City, used to be involved with a trainer for Russian martial arts, and screams at someone named Ralph in her sleep. The next day she is gone when he awakes, but her sister Rose, whom she lives with, is there and tries to get to know him a bit. She then kindly warns him to be careful. Meanwhile, Tony begins losing his enthusiasm for his job on the police force, frustrated that there is no action or comparison to how they portray it on TV. He tries to get his chief to become shorter tempered, as per the stereotype in movies, by taking on bigger jobs. Charlie comes to Tony begging him to act as a voice of reason for the times ahead, not wanting to get hung up or paranoid about anything he may find odd about her. Charlie and Harriet begin falling deeper in love; he finds that she gets along great with his friends, they have perfectly matched passions, so he takes her to meet his parents. His parents Stuart and May are flagrantly Scottish, and tend to believe in conspiracy theories themselves, at which Charlie scoffs. His mother relies on the Weekly World News to keep her factually updated and keeps them stacked up as reading material. Charlie picks one up in the bathroom, out of bemusement, and finds an article on "Mrs. X", a bride who kills her husbands on their honeymoon, who seems to perfectly match Harriet. The killer's three reported victims were a plumber named Ralph, a lounge singer from Atlantic City, and a Russian martial arts student. Now strongly suspicious of her, Charlie begs Tony to investigate. After finding that the husbands in question that have disappeared have been reported missing along with their wives, Charlie tries to let the issue go. Unfortunately, his panic gets worse, suspecting her all the while but trying to cover it up, and eventually he breaks up with her. After a few days of gloom, Tony informs him that one of the husband's killers confessed. Charlie, realizing that he needs to make changes, rushes back to Harriet, informing her that he will see a therapist. He wins her over by playing one of his poems from her rooftop, and as they reconcile, every doubt he had gets disproved. Her friend Ralph was actually a girl, for example. At his parents 30th year anniversary, Charlie proposes to Harriet, and soon a wedding is underway. Later, they venture off to a secluded hotel up in the mountains for their honeymoon. Meanwhile, back at the police station, the chief informs Tony that the woman who had taken credit for the murder of the plumber was actually a compulsive confessor. Tony faxes a photo of Harriet to all of the known associates of the three missing husbands, and they all recognize her as their friends' wife. Tony tries desperately to contact Charlie but finds that the phone lines are down due to a storm where they are honeymooning, so he charters a plane. Upon landing he calls Charlie and warns him that Harriet is "Mrs. X", but before he can tell him anything else, their phone line gets knocked down, and the power goes out. Charlie desperately tries to escape, but Harriet finds him and begins acting unsettled and confrontational as he tries to leave her without letting on that he knows her traits. The endearing staff literally forces them into their hotel room to spend their first night together, and Charlie finds himself alone in the room with Harriet and an ax for the firewood. Harriet locks the door and begins telling him that she's been married before. He forces her into the closet and locks it, then looks down at their desk and sees a "Dear Jane" letter for Harriet, saying he has run away. Rose then leaps from the shadows and swipes at Charlie with the ax, stating that the husband "is never supposed to be in the room when the note is found", revealing herself to be the true killer. Charlie has no option but to run to the roof and try to evade Rose long enough for the police to show up. Eventually Tony leads the police into the hotel but arrests Harriet, still believing her to be the murderer. Rose swings the ax at Charlie and is thrown off the building, with only Charlie holding her up from falling to her death, prompting Tony to come to her aid. The authorities take her away, and Charlie and Harriet resume their lives afterward as a happy couple.

Daniel Eugene "Rudy" Ruettiger grows up in Joliet, Illinois dreaming of playing college football at the University of Notre Dame. Though he is achieving some success with his local high school team (Joliet Catholic), he lacks the grades and money necessary to attend Notre Dame, as well as the talent and physical stature to play football for a major intercollegiate program. Ruettiger takes a job at a local steel mill like his father Daniel Sr., who is also a Notre Dame fan. He prepares to settle down, but when his best friend Pete is killed in an explosion at the mill, Rudy decides to follow his dream of attending Notre Dame and playing for the Fighting Irish. He resolves to do everything he can to get into the football powerhouse. He travels to South Bend, Indiana to the campus but fails to get admitted to Notre Dame. With the help and sponsorship of a local priest, Rudy enrolls at Holy Cross College, a nearby junior college, hoping to get good enough grades to qualify for a transfer. In keeping with his football dream, he approaches a Notre Dame stadium groundskeeper named Fortune and volunteers to work for free. Rudy sneaks in and out of Fortune's office at night through a window and sleeps on a cot, having no place to live of his own. At first, Fortune is indifferent toward Rudy but gradually sees his sincerity and later provides Rudy with a key of his own to the office. Rudy learns that Fortune has never seen a Notre Dame football game, despite having worked at the stadium for years. Rudy befriends D-Bob, a graduate student at Notre Dame and a teaching assistant at Rudy's junior college. The socially awkward D-Bob offers to tutor Rudy in exchange for help in meeting girls. Suspecting an underlying cause to Ruettiger's previous academic problems, D-Bob has him tested and Rudy finds out that he has dyslexia. Rudy learns how to overcome his disability and becomes a better student. Meanwhile, Rudy's efforts at setting up D-Bob with attractive girls at Holy Cross prove fruitless, until one girl offers to set D-Bob up with Elsa, a shy co-ed. At Christmas vacation, Rudy returns home to his family's appreciation of his report card but is still mocked for his attempts at playing football and loses his fiance to one of his brothers. After numerous rejections, Rudy is finally admitted to Notre Dame during his final semester of transfer eligibility. He rushes home to tell his family, with his father announcing the news to his steel mill workers over the loudspeaker. Rudy persuades Fortune to promise to come see his first game if Rudy is permitted to suit up. After "walking on" as a non-scholarship player for the football team, Ruettiger convinces coach Ara Parseghian to give him a spot on the practice squad. An assistant coach warns the players that 35 "scholarship" players will not even make the "dress roster" of players who take the field during the games but notices that Ruettiger exhibits more drive than many of his scholarship teammates. Rudy is part of the practice team & puts in a lot of effort every day on the field & even earns the disrespect of the regular team members for "making them look bad". But the coaches notice Rudy's effort & dedication. Coach Parseghian agrees to Rudy's request to suit up for one home game in his senior year so his family and friends can see him as a member of the team. Rudy has accepted that he will never be a regular member of the Notre Dame team & is happy to get a chance to dress up. However, Parseghian steps down as coach following the 1974 season and is replaced by former NFL coach Dan Devine. D-Bob announces he is leaving for law school in Miami with Elsa, now his fiance. Coach Devine keeps Rudy on the team but refuses to list him on the active playing roster. When Rudy sees that he is not on the dress list for the team's next-to-last game, he becomes angry and quits the team. Fortune sees Rudy at the stadium and asks why he is not at practice, then chastises Rudy for giving up. Rudy learns for the first time that Fortune has seen his share of Notre Dame games because he was once on the team but has never seen one from the stands. Fortune had quit the team because he felt he was not playing due to his skin color. Fortune reminds Rudy that he has nothing to prove to anyone but himself, and that not a day will go by when he will not regret quitting. With that, Rudy returns to the team. Led by team captain and All-American Roland Steele, the other seniors rise to Rudy's defense and lay their jerseys on Devine's desk, each requesting that Rudy be allowed to dress in his place for the season's final game. In response, Devine lets Ruettiger suit up for the game against Georgia Tech. Steele invites Ruettiger to lead the team out of the tunnel onto the playing field. Fortune is there to see it, as promised. As the game nears its end with Notre Dame up 27-3, Devine sends all the seniors onto the field but not Rudy, despite urging from Steele and the assistant coaches. As a "Rudy!" chant begins in the stadium, the offensive team, led by tailback Jamie O'Hare, overrules Devine's call for victory formation and scores another touchdown instead, providing defensive player Ruettiger with one more chance to get into a game and thus be entered onto the official roster of Notre Dame football players. Devine finally lets Rudy play on the final kickoff, to the joy of his family. Rudy stays in for the final play of the game, sacks the Georgia Tech quarterback, and to cheers from the stadium, is carried off the field on his teammates' shoulders.