Review of Goon (2012) by Ola G — 23 Dec 2012

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), a bouncer at a bar in Massachusetts, feels ostracized from his stereotypical Jewish family, his father, Dr. Glatt (Eugene Levy) and brother both being doctors. One day he attends a minor league hockey game with his friend Pat (Jay Baruchel). Pat taunts the visiting team during a fight and one of their players climbs into the stands, calling him a homosexual slur. Doug, in defense of his gay brother, Ira, quickly knocks him out, which prompts the rest of the crowd to cheer him on. Soon after, Doug gets a phone call from the coach of his hometown team, Orangetown Assassins, who offers him a job as an enforcer. In the meantime, veteran enforcer and Doug's idol Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Liev Schreiber) is demoted to the minors after serving a 20 game suspension for slashing an opponent in the head from behind. Three years prior, Rhea hit and concussed the highly skilled prospect Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin) who has had trouble recovering from that incident due to the fear of being hit, being stuck in the minors and falling in with the wrong crowd. After earning himself the nickname "The Thug", Doug is called up to Canada and hired by Laflamme's team, the Halifax Highlanders, to protect Laflamme and be his roommate. The Highlanders experience success with Doug as their primary enforcer, and he quickly gains popularity among fans and teammates. Eventually Doug will need to face up to Ross "The Boss" Rhea to show who is the top enforcer in the league...

To be honest there is only one hockeymovie worth to watch, and that is still "Slapshot" from 1977 with Paul Newman. A timeless classic from so many angles. The problem with "Goon" is first of all the casting of Seann William Scott as the lead, since he has only one character in him and that is Stifler. The second problem is that the movie doesn't know what sort of movie it wants to be. A regular comedy, a black comedy or actually some sort of documentary twisted comedy. Thus, it becomes neither, even if the latter is the closest since the movie does have a foundation in the life of hockey enforcer Doug Smith. What I did like was to see Liev Schreiber as Ross "The Boss" Rhea and taking on the role full on. Thumbs up. And you can of course question the idea of actually having an enforcer on a hockeyteam as many team does in the NHL and I reckon in an even worse manner in lower leagues. I think hockey should be physical, but not brutal and ugly where some players go on the ice to just take out someone. It makes me think of the McSorely/Brashear incident. Despite the fact that Brashear was an ugly player himself. But, that doesn't belong in a hockeyrink. "Goon" is hardly up there with "Slapshot" and I am not sure we will ever see another hockeymovie close to "Slapshot".