KINDAH’S REVIEW

Film Title:  Goon

Director: Michael Dowse

Studio/Distributor:  Alliance FIlms

Principle Cast:  Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Kim Coates, Marc-Andre Grondin, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber

Running Time: 90mins

Release Date: February 24^th 2012

Reviewed By Kindah Mardam Bey<

It is only fair I give my hockey credentials up front and say I have absolutely zero affinity for the game. Watching sports on TV is as exciting to me as watching paint dry. Perhaps a morsel of joy could be found for me sat front row and cheering along at an actual game, but then I would be embarrassing whoever I was with by cheering for the non-descript ‘red team.’ So, let it be known that with so little interest in hockey, I found the movie Goon to be completely awesome. 

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a bouncer at a club and a shameful embarrassment to his highly educated upper-middle class family. When Doug attends a hockey game with his friend, played by Jay Baruchel, and ends up defending his friend’s honour with his fists, Doug gets recruited as an enforcer to protect star player Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin) in a minor league hockey team. What is so great about this story of Doug’s rise to fame and infamy on the ice is that he can’t skate more then I could when I first strapped blades to my feet and secondly, he is not violent by nature.

In fact the term, “I am a lover, not a fighter” is really Doug’s tagline, especially when he falls in love with Eva (Allison Pill) a foul-mouthed hockey groupie. Doug is also slightly dim-witted and always sees the best in people, so when he is pitted against Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber) – a major league player demoted to the minor leagues for his overly violent tendencies – now washed up and has been looking for a last fight that will let him leave the game in a blaze of glory, it is an epic battle on the ice between Doug and Ross that will decide the fate of both men.

So much of Goon was good I hardly know where to start. First off, Evan Golderg (Superbad, Pineapple Express) and Jay Baruchel’s script was a delightfully complex and comedic look at the sport, the players within it, and the journey of one man. Baruchel makes Doug so lovable and Seann William Scott makes him so lofty with his punches that he looks like a gentle giant unable to control his own strength. This was Baruchel’s first full-length feature he wrote and it was amply impressive; some of the jokes had as much impact as the punches.

Director Michael Dowse (Fubar) allows the best to come out of all the actors and when off the ice allows the performances to come through without getting in the way. The ice is Dowse’s domain however, and you are privy to some of the best on ice camera work ever scene, including the up close fights you are involved in - not dissimilar to an accomplice.

Kim Coates as the coach Ronnie Hortense, plays the loud mouthed and no nonsense leader fearlessly. Allison Pill as the only female in the cast is sassy and smart. I have enjoyed seeing Pill grow from strength to strength in every performance she commits to the screen. Liev Schreiber’s part is small but intense as Doug’s adversary and he always seems to bring such a bounty of character, performance and likeability to everything he does.

Ultimately Goon’s success or demise is held in the capable hands of Seann William Scott who is known for creating memorable characters, like Stifler. It may be that Scott’s performance as Doug Glatt will even eclipse the character of Stifler and this will be what he is known for in the future. I was enormously impressed with Scott as he seemed to find just the right balance of naiveté, comedy and all out violence.

I mentioned in the Canadian Film Review another great aspect of the film was the soundtrack, largely compiled of bagpipes and/or opera moments that had me laughing at these overly epic gestures of music paired with this comedy; like they stole the last few moments of Chariots of Fire and inserted it into Caddyshack.

The film was thoroughly enjoyable throughout but it all came down to the moment between Doug Glatt and Ross Rhea. Waiting for these two men to get onto the ice and drop gloves was rife with anticipation and exhilarating, and when they finally faced each other off in a Gladiator meets Clash of the Titans moment - full on awesome.

Hockey fan or no hockey fan, Goon is a hilarious, foul-mouthed, love-story that throws some of the best punches ever committed to screen. Round up your friends and don’t miss this epic Canadian hockey film.

TREVOR’S REVIEW

Film Title:  Goon

Director: Michael Dowse

Studio/Distributor:  Alliance FIlms

Principle Cast:  Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Kim Coates, Marc-Andre Grondin, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber

Running Time: 90mins

Release Date: February 24^th 2012

Reviewed By Trevor Alberts

Not since Slap Shot has a movie taken such a raw – and hilarious – look at the stereotypical cast of characters that make up a typical hockey team. In particular, this movie focuses on what’s now the most talked-about hockey archetype: The Goon.

Seann William Scott plays adorable bruiser Doug Glatt, who believes that the only thing he’s good at is punching people’s lights out. He’s recruited to play at a level just-below the big leagues, and he’s proud of his accomplishments, in spite of his disapproving family. He finds love. He finds purpose. He makes friends amongst an unlikely gang of rag-tag misfits.  

The Doug Glatt character is easily one of the biggest strengths in the film, as he brings an outsider approach to the game of hockey. More importantly, he brings a child-like innocence to ass kicking for sport. If Doug had a single nasty bone in his body, the film would never have worked. It would have simply come across as an unoriginal glorification of pugilsm.

Rounding out the cast are the film’s writer, Jay Baruchel, and veteran actor Liev Schreiber. Baruchel is outrageous as Scott’s foul-mouthed best friend and Schreiber is quite believable in the role of hockey’s most feared and respected goon, Ross Rhea. Ross is almost over the hill as a hockey player, and he’s only valuable as an enforcer. Desperate to hang on to this dubious title, Rhea becomes the Goliath whose shadow hangs heavy over Doug, who’s expected to succeed Ross.

This movie is crude, violent and hilarious. And it takes on the topic of hockey violence in a way that’s ironic, yet not preachy. You could argue that the way director Michael Dowse gleefully portrays all the fighting (there could be more punches thrown in this movie than in Scorcese’s Raging Bull) is his way of glorifying violence but isn’t that what hockey fans do? Whenever the gloves are dropped on the ice, everyone in the arena gets on their feet to cheer. 

Dowse also avoids the pitfalls of trying to shoot the film’s hockey playing scenes in an overly stylized way. This is what makes us roll our eyes while watching most hockey movies. Really, we don’t need to see a camera sliding low along the ice, or jibbing overhead. After watching Hockey Night in Canada our whole lives, we the audience, have our own idea of where the cameras should be placed during a game. Anything else takes us out of the action.

Along those lines, credit should also be given toBaruchel for writing a script that spares us the clichéd “final game where everything is at stake” scene at the end of the film. And the jokes about Canada and Canadians are spot-on, yet subtle. Nice work.

On the Red Carpet with the cast of GOON

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Written by :

Kindah