2003-09-19 - 3:39 a.m.

As far as movies set in Boston go, Boondock Saints was pretty OK. Which ain�t saying much, but that�s another story.

It�s really fun to see movies set in my city, especially for the beauty shots where I can think hey, I�ve been there. Maybe one of those small blobs is ME! Look! I�m a small blob!

But there�s always a lack of congruencies. Or congruity. Congruition?

Verisimilitude.

In one scene in this movie, the two characters take the Red Line from (presumably) South Boston to Cambridge, and then they just appear, walking purposely, for a moment or two at the Waterfront, and then they�re all of a sudden in Copley Square (which would mean taking the Red Line to Cambridge, changing at, I would hope, Kendall, just to head back to Boston again, and getting off at South Station to walk all the way towards Copley, drifting errantly north in order to go out of the way to take the harsh and dramatic looking route like they�re avoiding sidewalk cracks to save a mother�s back). Moments later, they�re at the Fairmount Copley Plaza Hotel, where they wanna be, but then, just for kicks, they descend the stairs of the Arlington Green Line stop, blocks away, and then they�re at their hotel again.

These boys are on a scavenger hunt, or they�re lost.

I don�t wanna nit-pick here, but c�mon. We�re talking about Boston here. A city who�se residents pride themselves on being able to know exactly where they are and also how to get someplace else at all times.

Watching the movie, some of which was obviously not shot in Boston, I wondered how New Yorkers must feel when they watch movies that take place in New York.

And then I stopped. They don�t care (I�m guessing). Lots of movies take place there, so residents of that fine city probably yawn when a character exits a crowded Manhattan club with his lady to greet an empty street and an apartment three or four romantic blocks away, or same scenario but all of a sudden they�re on a 3am horse-drawn carriage through Central Park, and let�s take a dip in that pond, or same scenario but gets a very available cab that can navigate the thirty-second magic wormhole to Connecticut.

And of course there�s movies like Groundhog Day. Wasn�t shot in Pennsylvania. People in the town the film was shot in are happy, people in the town depicted are happy. Both can claim bragging rights. Nobody else really knows the difference.

Best Boston film ever, in terms of actually respecting the space-time continuum? Good Will Hunting. I like to say (to friends) that�s the place where Robin Williams taught when I pass by Bunker Hill Community College.

I�ll forgive the scene where Williams inspires Damon at an unusually lonesome bench at the Public Gardens (as if Damon, a thuggy resident of South Boston, had never discovered the Gardens on his own, or as if Williams, who can apparently tame squirrels and ward off stray pedestrians, can transform the Gardens into some serene and pastoral land of tranquility for Damon).

But the characters in the film, however implausible the story, actually walk around Cambridge/Boston as if it were a real place.

Anything else? No, I guess that covers it.

More movies should be shot in Boston, �cause I wanna see the beauty shots and feel that surge of local pride, no matter how bad the film (wait, no, I will not see Celtic Pride under any circumstance). But if you�re gonna set a film in Boston, please do the city justice, or run the risk of making locals angry enough to toss Sour Patch Kids at the heads of the stars of the film, should you choose to premiere the movie in Boston, which, of course, you won�t.