Director: Michael Dowse
Genre: Comedy
Rating: C+
So, in celebration of the NHL Lockout coming to an end and hockey being back, I've decided to review the hockey film Goon. Inspired by the biography Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith, Goon follows Jewish dimwit Doug Glatt (Scott) in his rather accidental journey into minor league hockey. Doug is the son of a stereotypical Jewish doctor who's long felt a bit ostracized in his family owing to the fact that he's not nearly as smart as his father (Eugene Levy) or brother (David Paetkau) - his brother, Ira, is also a doctor, and a gay one at that. One day, Doug goes to a minor league hockey game with his friend, Pat (Baruchel), where he gets into a fight with one of the players who uses the word "fag." This fight inspires the coach of Doug's home team to recruit him as an enforcer. From there, Doug is called up to Canada to play for the Halifax Highlanders. The Highlanders have a problem with their best player, Xavier Lalfamme (Marc-André Grondin); three years prior he was concussed by Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Schreiber). Laflamme is now scared of being hit again, and is struggling, while Rhea has been demoted to the Minors again and is looking to go out with a bang. Oh! And there's a girl, Eva (Pill), who is a real puck bunny, who's charmed by Doug even though she has a boyfriend.
Um... okay, so this movie is kind of filled with stereotypes and archetypical characters. No one seems to be really all that well developed and things tend to fall on the basic path of "good," "bad" or "good but in need of redemption" that one typically expects in a movie like this. It's a fun movie, but there's no real depth to it, which is in itself a bit disappointing. I also kind of found that there was no real suspense to it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the direction that the film is going in, or what the end result will be. It's not hard to figure out.
That said, it is fun. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the old Slap Shot movies, just with a new cast. It's pretty much everything you expect from a movie about hockey starring Seann William Scott. I donno, I'm not sure what more to say. It wasn't great, but it was good.
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