Goon

I love hockey. I don't know if you heard me. I. Love. Hockey. So I got excited when I started hearing the buzz that Goon was creating, especially among hockey fans, writers, and even players. So once I was hit with the void created by the end of the Stanley Cup Final (in which my team won its first championship!) I moved Goon up to the top of my Netflix queue, ready for something good.

I was disappointed. Severely. This wasn't a case of a movie that's pretty good but gets a lot of hype and is built up as great. It's just not a very good movie. It's got a couple laughs and funny lines, but other than that it's lacking.

Let's take the main character, Doug Glatt, played by Seann William Scott. He's a nice guy, bouncer at a bar, not very bright while the rest of his family is. However, he's more written as just plain stupid, bordering sometimes on challenged. As if there's no other way to make character nice and sympathetic. There's no depth. He's just...simple. He has no real thoughts or concerns about what he's doing, he's just glad to find something he's good at. It's pandering, not endearing.

So, Doug goes to a hockey game with his friend, the incredibly annoying Ryan (played by co-writer Jay Baruchel). When a player from the opposing team goes to the penalty box and decides to go into the stands to attack Ryan for taunting him, Doug intervenes when the player calls Ryan gay, because Doug's brother is gay so he takes offense. The player punches Doug, who is unfazed by it. Doug then knocks the guy out quickly and easily, because, you know, he's a bouncer. Apparently Doug's ability to take and throw a punch is all that's needed for him to be offered a spot on the home team in the next few days. Doug can't skate, he gets to the point where he can stand and slowly make his way to where he needs to go, but I guess this doesn't matter as he can fight.

After a short time, his fighting ability gets him noticed by a minor-league team who signs him to protect their star player. He instantly becomes a star and a leader on the team – after a few weeks he is made an assistant captain – merely for his fighting ability. In this movie, hockey is all about the fighting. The game is simplified and boiled-down to the most brutal bits – which make it look exactly like what people who don't know anything about the game think it is. You know how hockey only gets attention on ESPN when something bad happens and people think that's all it is? Yeah, this is like that.

As a fan, I find that insulting. Yes, we do, for the most part, like fighting. Yes, we do often like the tough guys. But not so much, really, when they are a one-dimensional player who only fights and offers no skill – we'll like them as a person because by and large they're actually good, friendly people but not as a player. More often than not, fans will bemoan their team playing someone who offers nothing but an ability to take and throw a punch over someone who might not be as good at that but can bring something else to the table. Fighting doesn't win games, scoring goals and keeping the other team from scoring does. And Doug is one of those one-dimensional players, so, in reality, he wouldn't be as adored as he is. I feel as though the movie whiffed on a chance in the slot to make a statement on fighting or the role of the tough guy or enforcer in hockey. The classic Slap Shot, known for its portrayal of fighting, does this with characters who see their team descending into goonery and making a mockery of the game.

As a film fan, it's really poor film making and story telling. There's no real struggle here. There's no actual obstacle for Doug – everything just falls into his lap. His parents don't like that he's a goon and think he could be doing something better, but we only see that in one scene which is just a ham fisted way to make us sympathize with him. It's there and then gone. It's not earned and it's not followed-up.

The film climaxes with a game between Doug's team and the team of a legendary fighter at the end of his career. So of course it's played as the changing of the guard type deal. But...there's no real build-up to it. Ok, this guy delivered the Marty-McSorley-on-Donald-Brashear-esque hit that gave the star player a concussion and made him too scared to play in the big leagues anymore, hence why he's in the minors. But that didn't happen during the movie, it happened a couple years ago. There's no bad blood between Doug and him or between the two teams. It's just that we're supposed to care because we're supposed to care.

Ok, ok...the two teams are also playing, in the last game of the season, to decide which one makes the playoffs. Not win the championship. Make the playoffs. The stakes just aren't there. I'm not invested enough to care whether or not one of them makes the playoffs. Give me a reason to root for them other than that I'm supposed to. In Miracle, Team USA doesn't win the gold medal by defeating the Soviets in the climactic game of the movie, but it has enough emotional power to serve the purpose. Not so here.

The love story between Doug and Eva similarly offers nothing for you to grab hold of. She has a boyfriend but he's out of town so there's no trouble at first. When he comes back and discovers that she's been seeing Doug, they break up, she gets with Doug for reals (because they pretty much already were) and Doug goes and lets the guy punch him for taking his girlfriend. It's all very easy.

So, at the end of the movie, you walk away with nothing but a couple good lines to remember and share with others who've seen the movie. There's nothing else memorable. And you have a lesser appreciation for the game. I wanted to like this movie, I really did, but it just gave me no reason to. Like Patrik Stefan it had a wide open net with a few seconds left, missed, then the other team took the puck the other way, scored and won in OT (if you don't get this reference, YouTube is your friend).

1 out of 5