Decent Hockey Movie

Rating: Null/10 (30 March 2012)

Goon (2011)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent comedy about bouncer Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), a simple man whose parents are ashamed of him because he never amounted to anything special. One night while at a hockey game he ends up beating the pulp out of one of the players so he's given a contract and quickly works himself up as an enforcer and soon he's going toe to toe against his idol (Liev Schreiber). If you're expecting something like SLAP SHOT then you're going to be disappointed as this film comes no where close to that classic but GOON still manages to be entertaining even though I think it falls well short of being a good movie. For a comedy there are enough good scenes to make this movie work including a hilarious bit inside the locker room where a couple guys are sexually assaulting the goalkeeper's helmet, which just happens to have pictures of his mother on it. This scene is an extremely funny one as are many of the fights that Glatt gets involved in. An enforcer is basically someone who can't play hockey but they're a good fighter so they're sent into the game to cause damage. These fighting scenes are actually well-staged and I thought for the most part they contained a lot of energy and fire. I thought Seann William Scott did a pretty good job in the lead role as he manages to make you believe that the character is soft-spoken and kind while at the same time, when it comes time to his job, he's ready to explode into violence. Schreiber also surprised me with how well he played the older role of a vet on his final days. Co-writer Jay Baruchel plays the annoying friend who really killed a lot of the film for me and I thought the role as the groupie/girlfriend (Alison Pill) was well acted but the screenplay didn't do her any justice. The biggest problem I had with the film is that I simply couldn't connect to any of the characters. Outside the lead I found most of them to be pretty standard characters and I just couldn't care about any of their problems. This includes the young hotshot, the gay brother or anyone else that we're introduced to.