Review of Goon (2012) by Daniel P — 25 Feb 2013

This isn't a four-star movie in the way that a classic is, but one that I rate highly because of how significantly it surpassed my expectations. It's raunchy and hilarious, wistful and sweet, and above all that, it's got hockey!

The promo copy bills it as Superbad meets Slap Shot, and that's not so far off. Stifler - I can't use his real name, I just can't! - plays Doug, a bouncer who joins a minor pro team to fight, and Jay Baruchel plays his small-town Massachussetts hoodrat friend, a character more comparable to one from a Kevin Smith film. The funniest bits might be the ones with Baruchel, whose mouth is shockingly foul - even when hosting his public access hockey show.

I liked that the bouncer character was written as a meathead with a heart of gold, but he seemed too stupid to be believable - that said, it's true of hockey culture that the knuckleheads are often the players most liked on the team, and the ones all-too-willing to do whatever the team asks of them and smile about it.

In fact, unlike a lot of hockey films (The Mighty Ducks 2, for instance, where Trinidad & Tobago ices a team and Iceland is a power in the sport), this one is full of rewards for the hockey fan, for which you can thank the Canadians who adapted fighter Doug Smith's memoir, (Baruchel and Superbad's Evan Goldberg). We've even got a highly touted but uninterested French-Canadian prospect for comic relief! (Google "Alexandre Daigle" if you don't know why this is funny.).

Throw in an almost-too-saccharine love story (with Woody Allen's latest regular, Alison Pill) and an inevitable confrontation between Stifler and the league's reigning heavyweight champ (Liev Schreiber), and what you get is a charming little story with a ton of big laughs. Like I said, it's not actually a four-star movie, but it's a fantastic surprise that you (or at least, I) could watch again and again. Promising work from some young talent, and one that will sell well in Canada for decades to come. In the words of Don Cherry, (or was it Bob and Doug Mackenzie), "What a beauty!".