by Thomas Willett
12:00am PST, March 15, 2012
In modern cinema, there tends to be two types of sports movies: inspirational and satirical. The former usually places too much respect into what is dubbed as an inspirational story. The latter usually lampoons the subject to the point of ridiculous heights. When it comes to the violent sport of hockey, where does the respect begin and the lampooning end? In the comedy Goon, a cast and crew of Canadians do their best to show pride through ridiculous fighting that ends with sincere apologies. Does it fit the rest of the story, or is this just a third rate Slap Shot?
After picking a fight at a hockey game Doug “The Thug” Glatt (Seann William Scott) joins a major hockey team for the sole purpose of starting fights. It sparks pride amongst the townsfolk and he becomes destined to replace legendary Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber) as top fighter. Along with an innocent relationship with hardcore fan Eva (Allison Pill), the story follows his journey to become notorious. It’s in the down time where it’s discovered that he is neither bright nor violent. He is just a nice Canadian man playing a beloved pastime.
What makes the movie work is its unabashed love for the Canadian culture. Co-writers Evan Goldberg and Jay Baruchel based their story on Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith’s book “Goon” and took it as an opportunity to bring it to life on the big screen with rabid fandom and plenty of dirty jokes told through heavy accents. Baruchel even makes a small appearance as Ryan, a local hockey show host who enjoys filming fights and cursing at people. It is his brief time that spurts some fun into an otherwise violent movie.
It may be perceived that violence is the point, but it feels familiar. The only thing that can make a hockey movie stand out is if it has interesting characters. Luckily Seann William Scott is terrific and manages to make the soft spoken lead a likable protagonist. It’s when he’s not on the ice fighting that the real humor develops as he tries to interact with a society who just wants him to fight. Due to a vibrant script of cultural references, these moments feel sincere and only strengthen the humor. The only problem is that sometimes the actual games are more violent than slapstick and it creates an uneven feel. The only thing hinging them as tolerable is the characters, whose motives drive the movie into a very interesting third act.
While this may be an unfair assessment of the actual hockey game, it also may be true. The idea of making movies to satirize the ridiculous nature of sports is nothing new. 2009’s Big Fan is a great example of the genre being done right through deep character study and a drive to be accepted as a rabid fan. It’s not that Goon is lacking drive or character, it’s just that hockey is not a very deep sport. No matter the effort, it’s hard to make a hockey movie that isn’t either inspirational or just violent. Because of these restrictions, the movie almost succeeds at being an interesting take on a sport with only one possible gimmick, and one that Paul Newman and George Roy Hill’s 1977 Slap Shot overshadows within terms of creativity. The level of tolerance to a whole movie based around it will determine how much fun it will be.
Goon is by no means a bad movie. However, it comes across more as a Canadian attempt to remake Slap Shot. Scott manages to carry the movie well enough for entertainment value, but the inability to escape numerous uninspired fighting scenes keeps this from appealing to more than a niche audience. Baruchel and Goldberg’s script is superb and provides many memorable lines of dialog and character moments, but little else. This movie needed more of a balance between Canadian sincerity and hockey violence to become a likable movie. Instead numerous scenes just feel weird and irksome. If it did, it would be possible that this film would have been more than an average understated comedy.
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