Goon (2012)

Can't quite put my finger on why this movie makes me laugh so much - but all I know is the humour is original and it takes you by surprise all the way through the film. I want to watch it again so I can analyse and explain the humour properly. In the meantime, I recommend watching it if you like Sean William Scott and you can handle rough sports, a bit of violence, deep moments of sadness and weird jokes.

Goon is based off Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey, a book accounting Doug Smith's career as a hockey enforcer most likely read by not a single "hockey" fan due to its lack of big, bright pop-up photos of players fighting one another. Now in case you're wondering why I threw quotation marks around the second "hockey" is because the hockey that Goon showcases isn't hockey at all, but street fighting on ice. Take The Rolling Stones hit 'Street Fighting Man', throw a pair of whee skates on it, cram it with a Boston accent, give it commentary by Scott Hamilton and you have a flamboyantly pathetic attempt at masculinity that could easily pass as Goon.Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy hockey to its fullest. There's something magnificent about watching a bunch of padded meat heads blindly chase a tiny object around an enclosed cage in an attempt at smacking it into a net. It's almost like going to the races if all the Greyhounds were jacked up on 5-hour energy, creatine, and Ellio's Pizza and it took place in some 13 year old's makeshift backyard wraslin' slum. However, what's showcased in Goon isn't hockey; it's testosterone with blades and a bruise. It's trumped up adolescence screaming for their dads to come home and their moms to quit making the blue box blues and buy the real stuff.Goon centers around Doug Glatt, a bouncer at a dive bar in Massachusetts who feels left without any achievements and must continually deal with the disappointment of a family full of doctors. One night while out with his buddy Pat at a minor league hockey game, Doug knocks an aggitated player out who climbs the glass and attempts to attack his friend. Witnessing the fight, the towns minor league team recruits him as their enforcer, a player used primarily to protect teammates and dish out beatings when necessary. Soon Doug is recruited by the Canadian Halifax Highlanders, and opposing enforcer and Doug's idol Ross Rhea begins setting his sights on him.Behind all the awful accents, the shoddy facial hair (Except yours Liev Schrieber. It's glorious!), and the Massachusetts-is-the- biggest-hockey-purveyor-next-to-Canada (phew!) mentality, there is a story of heart and equality, of understanding and acceptance. Sean William Scott, looking like he's perpetually hiding food away in his jowls for a horde of baby birds back in his trailer, brings an honest hand to juggling a life that was once viewed as crushingly mediocre to all at once shockingly refreshing. I enjoy Sean William Scott. I don't enjoy Jay Baruchel. Will someone please stop giving him a Mohawk and tossing him in baggy jeans and flat brimmed hats from Lids? Seriously, put him in a Scrillex music video then take him out back and shoot him already.Directed by Sundance midnight favorite Michael Dowse, Goon attempts its best Judd Apatow impression, fiddling (no pun intended) with dick and vagina jokes around a brutal yet sincere and at times humanistic concept. When we aren't feeling like buying our main character a claw foot tub full of kittens, we're trying not to want to pull the shirt over and savagely beat Jay Baruchel's character. No surprise to discover that he also penned the film with the help of Evan Goldberg, who worked on such films as Knocked Up, Superbad, and Funny People. Seriously though, Jay Baruchel must have the worst luck with women or wants to secretly live inside the vaginal walls of every woman that turns him down, because I could go forever now without seeing him wiggle his tongue between his fingers. Goon's heart is in the right place, its just been punched one too many times in the sternum to elevate its heart rate to anywhere near a healthy level.

I watched this film because I like hockey and I heard it was a good story. Both points turned out to be true. However, the fight scenes are a little too gory for me: lots of blood and teeth and sound effects. Also the characters are just as crude and foul-mouthed as the stereotype. Hardly a line of dialog without an f word and a reference to penises, gays, and/or sex. If you know what you're getting into, then you may be able to see the really sweet story of Doug Glatt and his team, the Halifax Highlanders.So, Doug is not too bright, but he has firm ideas of the right thing to do. He is working as a bouncer in a bar when the film opens, hanging out with his best friend who has a sort of amateur hockey talk show. One night at a local team's game, an opposing team's player climbs into the crowd to fight with Doug's friend and Doug knocks him around. The coach of the local team invites him to join the team, to be a goon and protect the other players. Doug can't even skate, but he wants to belong. It isn't long before he gets sent up to Halifax to play in a Canadian league and that's where most of the story takes place. Doug's teammates are the usual band of misfits: the alcoholic old dog who is going through a divorce, the young earnest but not very good guy, the phenom who was injured in a NHl game and is trying to get his groove back, etc. They don't know how to be a team and they are terrible on the ice. It takes the open-hearted honesty of Doug the Thug to mold them into winners. And some fights, of course. By the way, there is also a love- interest in Eva. I'm not convinced she adds anything to the story but the scenes between Doug and Eva are mostly cute. "You make me want to stop sleeping with lots of guys" is not a great line, but it kind of works.

For those of you looking for a high-class, well-nuanced dramatic presentation, Goon is probably not for you. However, it is very funny and has a lot of heart in unexpected places, so is well worth a view for someone who likes sports movies and (extremely) vulgar comedy.The story revolves around Doug, a bouncer at an Ontario bar who one day beats up a hockey player at a minor league game who crawls into the stands to take out a fan. The performance is noticed by the home hockey coach, who invites him to a tryout. Doug can't even skate, but he is the toughest son-of-a-gun on the planet and is soon hired by the team to take out enemy goons. The movie traces Doug's remarkable and extremely tacky career as a hockey enforcer, up to a showdown with a famous bully from a rival team.This movie inevitably draws comparisons to Slap Shot, to which it is clearly indebted, but actually has a different slant than its predecessor. Slap Shot was an homage to teams like the 70s Flyers, who played a new rough and tumble style but whose players were still hockey players. Goon, by contrast, pays homage to a phenomenon of the 80s and 90s, single players hired by teams specifically to fight and do little else. Guys like Bob Probert, Chris Nilan, Derek Boogarde and others could barely play hockey, but made a very tough living being the body-guards of the skill players. Doug from Goon clearly plays that role.The movie gets a lot of comedic mileage out of the fact that these goons have no talent in the conventional sense; Doug is neither smart nor skilled, and we laugh at him because he is clear mockery of any sort of sporting ideal. Beyond that, he occupies a world that is so tacky that it is simply hilarious; the movie is at its best when it lovingly makes fun of the amazingly vulgar world of the minor-league hockey player. Doug is very sympathetic, however, because he is tough as nails and willing to take a nasty one for his teammate, and in the end it is this quality that ends up turning the tide for his team. We root for him because he is the type of person we like to be--a tough but ultimately kind-hearted lug who overcomes the odds by determination. At the same time the movie avoids the trap of taking itself seriously, and in the end gives us some good not-particularly-clean fun.