Interesting and realistic in some ways

Rating: 9/10 (2 March 2012)

If you play or played hockey before, this movie is enjoyable and realistic in some ways. Goon shows realistic elements such as how teams work together and each player has a role. There is a lot of fighting, reminiscent of hockey in the early 1990s. The script is bad but the direction and actors' tone and emotion portrayed is strong and semi-realistic. This is supposed to be a comedy but is in fact more like real life with several out-sized elements. Like a drama set in the world it takes place in, men playing a child's game for money, risking real life consequences, and facing trade-offs to keep their place in that world with no back up plans to speak of. So how is that funny? Pluses are that the subject was hockey, goons are shown respect, the team works together and that is shown as a positive. Minuses to fake sounding conversations and Jay Baruchels character, whose lines are needlessly distracting and border on blatant scene stealing. Seann William Scott as Doug Glatt and Liev Schrieber as Rhea both did a great job, as does the Halifax coach, the Laflamme character and the girlfriend. The use of profanity has been discussed as being realistic to the game...yes and no. The profanity in the movie is played for laughs and if you are over 25 you have probably already had enough of that. The film takes place at least 15 years ahead of Slap Shot in real hockey time, and is set in the present in terms of equipment and technology. The players were not very aggressive for pros, and except for the goons and Laflamme they were portrayed as unfocused losers. This is jarring in contrast to the team as a whole being portrayed as close to making the playoffs, which does not seem possible with those players. Even looking at these negatives, the positives are strong and this is a must see movie if you like hockey. Go see it.