Goon
Goon:
·
a
stupid, foolish or awkward person
·
a
hired hoodlum or thug,
·
an
enforcer or fighter (ice hockey)
Chances
are, if you’re British, of a certain vintage and a lover of surrealist comedy,
the word goon probably conjures up fond memories of Neddie, Eccles, Moriarty
and Bluebottle, the Ying Tong Song and the Dreaded Lurgy. From 1951 to 1960, Spike Milligan,
Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers spread mayhem in The Goon Show and accidentally
gave birth to Monty Python and the alternative comedy scene. If you go into Goon expecting anarchic
English eccentrics hitting each other in the face and speaking in funny voices
you’re going to be disappointed.
What you are going to get is Stifler from the American Pie movies
hitting a bunch of Canadians in the face in an ice hockey comedy that owes more
to the Paul Newman-starring Slap Shot than human/chipmunk hybrid Emilio
Estevez’s The Mighty Ducks.
In
sorta/kinda/not really true story Goon, Stifler (Seann William Scott) plays
Doug the Thug, a likable, good-natured doofus who can’t skate worth a damn but
can soak up punishment and dole it out.
A man of few words, Doug lets his fists do the talking when his
motor-mouthed best bud (the annoyingly offensive Jay Baruchel who also
scripted) picks a fight at a hockey game, knocking out the local team’s
bogeyman and finding himself offered a place on the team as its new goon; the
guy in ice hockey whose role on the team is simply to beat up the other team
and generally scare the bejesus out of them.
An
embarrassment to his snotty Ivy League-Jewish family of doctors, Doug finds
fame (or at least infamy) and a sense of purpose as a goon and is soon promoted
from the local league to minor league team the Halifax Highlanders, winning the
heart of adorable hockey slut Eva (an adorable Alison Pill). His role in the team is simply to
protect burnt-out star player Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin) who’s lost
his nerve and lost himself in drugs and women after being hospitalised by
league bad boy Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber); the king of the hockey goons and
Doug’s hero.
As
the Highlanders battle their way to the play-offs, it’s only a matter of time
before Doug and Rhea meet on the ice…
A
raucous, foul-mouthed comedy that’s as much a Western as it is a triumph of the
underdog sports movie, Goon is remarkably sweet-natured despite the amount of
blood it splashes across the ice.
Seann William Scott brings a puppy-like vulnerability and sweetness to
the naive, lunk-headed Doug, his goofy charm sweetening the brutality of the violence.
While Eugene Levy is rather wasted as Doug’s father, Alison Pill brings a
girl-next-door sweetness to her role as hockey slut and love interest Eva and
Grondin makes the spoiled, dissolute Laflamme sympathetic against the odds. With his world-weary air and
white-trash bandito moustache, Schreiber is a fierce presence as Rhea, more
aging gunfighter than out-and-out villain, and his eventual showdown with
Scottis a heart-swelling moment of catharsis. This is ice hockey as gladiatorial combat.
A hilarious,
bruising 90 minutes, Goon may struggle to find a UK cinema audience but how can
you not love a film that describes its main character as “gay porn hard”?
David Watson
Director
Michael Dowse
Writers
Jay Baruchel, Adam Frattasio, Evan Goldberg, Doug Smith
Cast
Seann William Scott, Live Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Allison
Pill, Kim Coates, Eugene Levy, Marc-Andre Grondin
Country
Canada
Running time
92 minutes
Year
2011
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