Too many missed shots

Rating: 6/10 (7 October 2012)

"Goon" is the story of a bar room bouncer, Doug Glatt, who has an amazing ability to kick butt. One day, he and his obnoxious, hockey-loving friend are in the stands watching a minor league hockey match when Doug ends up in a fight with a player from the opposing team. His toughness quickly becomes apparent, and he is invited to tryout for the local team where he becomes the team's enforcer and is dubbed, "Doug the Thug". The rest of the movie is about how he deals with his new life, makes friends with his room mate, gets the girl, and eventually fights the old guard enforcer from another team.
The movie started out funny, but it never quite decided if it was a dark comedy or a dark drama. Too many places in the movie missed entirely. When there was an opportunity for a funny line, the actors just came across as flat. Doug comes across as a big,dumb, yet likable guy, and I suspect that the writers/director wanted to avoid making him a cliché. They must have thought that giving him funny lines would have made the movie too funny and not dramatic enough. They accomplished their goal well enough, but in the process of trying to make the movie a more serious drama instead of a pure comedy, they missed on both.