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Every year, Hollywood cranks out dozens of sports movies—memorable movies about winning football teams and scrappy young boxers and even legendary racehorses. Meanwhile, hockey fans like me are forced to replay the same three or four hockey classics over and over again, patiently waiting for a new film that can capture the energy, the excitement, and, well, the violence of our beloved sport. It’s been years since anyone’s made a worthwhile hockey movie. Since Miracle hit theaters in 2004, we’ve been left with embarrassing hockey movies like Tooth Fairy and The Love Guru. Finally, though, director Michael Dowse (Take Me Home Tonight) has ended an agonizingly long hockey movie slump with Goon, the most outrageously hilarious hockey flick since Slap Shot.
Inspired by the biography of minor league hockey player Doug Smith, Goon tells the brutally funny story of a kid from Massachusetts who literally fights his way to a hockey career.
Seann William Scott stars as Doug Glatt, a mild-mannered, socially awkward bouncer who discovers his true calling while watching a hockey game. When a visiting player rushes into the stands, Doug levels him with one powerful blow. The next day, during an interview on his friend’s hockey talk show, he’s invited to try out for the local team. It doesn’t matter that Doug can’t skate; he can fight—and his talents quickly turn him into a fan favorite.
Goon follows Doug as he’s promoted to the minors, where he’s hired to protect the team’s star, Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-André Grondin), from other goons like Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber), who’s coming to the end of a long and violent career.
Written by Seth Rogen’s friend and frequent collaborator, Evan Goldberg, and consummate Canuck Jay Baruchel (who also gives an exceptionally foul-mouthed performance as Doug’s best pal), Goon is raucous and funny and gleefully violent—with a cast that’s worth cheering for.
Scott returns to Stifler levels of hilarity as Doug “The Thug” Glatt, a generally gentle giant who wouldn’t hurt a fly—unless, of course, that fly happened to be preparing to hit one of his friends or check one of his teammates. He’s bumbling and awkward—but never excessively so. Though character could have easily come off as dim-witted and annoying, Scott makes him sweet, shy, and altogether lovable.
The rest of the cast, meanwhile, offers up an abundance of quirky characters and hockey misfits—from the troublemaking Russians to the bitter, alcoholic veteran (Richard Clarkin). Their locker room antics give the film plenty of outrageous laughs, while Shreiber’s gritty aging goon, Rhea, adds a little bit of suspense, as the film builds to the big, no-holds-barred faceoff between veteran and rookie.
Goon may be exuberantly violent—it’s definitely the bloodiest hockey movie I’ve ever seen—but it’s also strangely thoughtful and even sometimes moving, especially in light of the recent tragedies involving NHL enforcers. Fortunately, though, it’s never heavy-handed, and the pace never drags.
Goon is the movie that hockey fans like me have been waiting years (even decades) to see. It’s loud, it’s bloody, it’s good-natured, and it’s downright hilarious—perfectly capturing the energy and the spirit of the game itself.
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