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As is often the case, the claim that the film is based on a true story is a bit of an overstatement; the only element of truth this has is the bare-bones plot: a no-education burly brawler becomes -almost by accident- an enforcer for his local Hockey team even though my grandmother’s shiatsu drives better than he skates. The real-life goon is named Doug Smith, while his counterpart is renamed Doug Glatt AKA Sean William Scott. He’s a no-brain bouncer for a local dive who gets into it with a Hockey thug and easily takes him out, which wins him an invitation to step on the ice. Soon enough the bigger club calls him up to watch over their wimpy super star, a French Canadian (why are WE always the goddamn wimps!) whose confidence was shaken by ageing thug Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber). As Doug impossibly leads his mates toward a playoffs spot, he also races toward an inevitable confrontation with the veteran he’s pushing out of the game. Maybe my dislike stems from the fact that right form the opening we’re treated to an overindulging Jay Baruchel who uses his status of co-screenwriter to take off the gloves and allow himself every and any crudity and impropriety, as if exacerbated by having done a high-priced Disney Bomb 2 years ago and quite eager to give the mouse the finger. I like Jay, homeboy hails from my beloved Montreal and even filmed his first TV show in my hometown (which, ironically, was called My Hometown…) but right out of the gate he tries -way too hard- to position himself as the indie-movie version of Seth Rogen. Here’s a tip Jay: everybody’s sick of Rogen’s shtick, so please clean up your act. Or, as previously stated, maybe it’s just the fact that everything centres around the glorification of a guy whose only possible talent is to beat the crap out of others. But he’s not a bully, will the producers say, he’s a really nice guy who just happens to break jaws very well. Sure, of course, right. But couldn’t you ask someone to actually write you a movie? I mean with actual dialogue. OK, maybe keep one joke or two (the 69 Jersey joke was easily the funniest one), but overall… You know what, I know what’s bothering me: It’s not written by Kevin Smith. Ive been waiting for Hit Somebody for SO long I’ve subconsciously allowed myself to hope this would be View Askew quality.
Did I like something in it? Yes, I did. Liev Schreiber with a handlebar ‘stash. The dude looks so cool with that ugly thing hanging form his nose it was enough to make me forgive the atrocious attempt at a Canadian accent. Want a tip too, Liev old Buddy? There IS no Canadian accent, and we certainly don’t sound like we’re all Irishmen raised in Australia by Austin Powers! But, you know, otherwise his solid, layered and even funny work is the saving grace of a film that should’ve been much funnier, and is quite frankly the funniest minor-league Hockey comedy since Slap Shot, but certainly can’t hold a candle to the latter. Overall I’d say worth the watch if you catch it on TV or on promo night at the video club, but otherwise I’d suggest waiting for Smith’s career opus (he vowed it would be his final film), which hopefully will get made before the end of the decade. We are a team of industry experts with vast experience and knowledge in such replica products as watches, handbags, phones and jewelry. Our reviews will show you all the tricks in the book that scammers use, and unveil the unfair practices used by phony dealers (believe me, there are plenty). Follow our advice when shopping for knockoff Rolex watches to avoid getting ripped off. There are hundreds of sites selling counterfeit products on the Internet, some do sell high quality products, but unfortunately, some of them just sell junk. Our aim is to give you the tools and ability to distinguish between the two extremes. We do not encourage anyone to buy fake products, and the purpose of this site is strictly informative.
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I love hockey. I could give a fuck about statistics and team history, about rules and regulations, about who’s scoring more goals or who’s going to the playoffs. I just love to watch hockey. I root for the team that was once feared as the Broad Street Bullies, I went to grad school at the university that consistently dominates the Beanpot in Boston, and for the longest time, my favorite player was Donald Brashear. It’s soccer on razorblades, only you get to beat the fucking merciless shit out of each other. It’s one of the few major sports where you get to carry your weapon on the playing field, and where brawls are not only frequent, but expected. It’s glorious. And while The Mighty Ducks franchise is adorable, it’s been quite some time since we’ve seen a great hockey movie. But here she is, folks. Goon, written by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg and directed by Michael Dowse, is the unholy bastard child of Rocky and Slap Shot, with the dynamite mechanics of Major League thrown in for good measure. It’s not so much a movie about hockey as about my favorite part of hockey, the enforcer. It’s hilarious and violent, a sweet love story punched in the face with a knuckle dragging sports blowout, with profanity fountaining out like a shook-up soda can. From the opening shots of blood splattering ice as a tooth slowly tumbles to the rink, asskicking abounds, and from opening buzzer to final bloody dukeout, Goon pummels you with gleeful abandon and you’re left dazed and smiling. Albeit short a few choppers. Based loosely on former enforcer Doug Smith’s memoir of the same name, Goon tells the story of Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott), a Massachusetts bar bouncer and hockey fan. He and his frenetic web-casting chum Ryan (Jay Baruchel) marvel over legendary thug Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber), an aging bruiser with a remarkable ‘stache and penchant for brutalizing his opponents. Rhea’s on his way out, after serving a twenty-game suspension for breaking a stick across the back of a player’s head. Mouthy Ryan incenses a player at a minor league game, causing him to climb into the stands, where he is beaten senseless by Glatt. And just like that, Doug finds himself in the minors, earning a reputation for skating in and busting the shit out of players on the opposing team. The fights are full on Blades of Steel making #99’s head bleed for the superfans brutal – a marvel of crunching bones and spurting blood. There are cheesesteaks that suffered less at the hands of Sylvester Stallone’s training than the other players at the chucked gloves of the mighty Hebrew Hockey Hammer. Doug’s like a big sweet dumb animal, Canadian polite but moose rampage brutal with his fists. Despite the lamentations of his doctor father (Eugene Levy), Doug insists that that’s what he’s good at, hurting people. He’s fiercely loyal, like a hurt puppy dog that you sometimes forget has the potential to tear off your face. And that’s what makes Goon so damn good. Doug’s a nice fucking guy, a big dumb ox that gets kicked and punched and hurt but keeps coming back to the stable because he’s got a giant fucking heart. Rather than a milquetoast Adrian, they saddle Doug with the fiery Eva (Alison Pill). Doug’s got a boyish crush on the foul-mouthed darling, who unfortunately has a boyfriend. It’s the only weirdly warped angle in the film — that Doug pines for an attached girl. Her boyfriend isn’t an asshole, so it makes Eva feel like a bad person. And yet, it makes perfect sense that Doug would have to fight for love against someone who isn’t a villain. Just like him skating on the ice and punching the fuck out of players because that’s his job. And once Doug swiftly makes the majors, he’s got a batch of fucking loons on his team, especially the maniac coach (the superb Kim Coates). Headlining the team is the arrogant Quebecois Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), a swift superstar who suffered the pimpglove of Rhea and now plays cowardly, despite still harboring that French-Canadian snootiness that makes you just want to collectively blowtorch the entire province into the murky frozen depths, freeze it over, and start anew with some of the more chummy rural folk. Most of the film revolves around Laflamme being a prick and Glatt trying doggedly to support him as a teammate, which seems clichéd, but still is incredibly effective . Rounding out the rest of the team are two mad Russians (George Tchortov and Karl Graboshas), the buttfuck batshit goalie they torment (Jonathan Cherry), the old salt captain prone to heartfelt speeches about his marital difficulty (Richard Clarkin), and his loyal dogsbody sidekick (Ricky Mabe). Each of the teammates is given enough of a thread to be interesting and amusing as shit without becoming a paper tiger to the central stories. There’s so much going on in the film, but it flows so effortlessly and excellently, buoyed by profanity and violence, as one would hope from a hockey movie about shitkicking. The acting is top notch, with everyone turning in unexpectedly badass performances. Baruchel is at his best when he’s playing the coked-out ferret, spewing swear words and bounding around like Timon on crank. Eugene Levy’s a disapproving dad in this, and it works well. He’s the anti-American Pie, and it’s a small but solid performance. Kim Coates also plays against type, usually the brazen Wildman, but here the kind of brazen Wildman gluing his team in place and corralling cats. In the effort of condensing — every fucking player on the team is awesome. EVERYONE. As the original Major League had a wondrous cadre of misfits, I would make the bold proclamation that Goon’s lunkheads are just about on par. Alison Pill is basically Baruchel’s Ryan with an all-gums smile and boobs, so it would make sense Doug would fall for her. Her chirpy barrage of profanity and cold-weather wrapped abrasiveness make her an odd pairing, but then again Doug’s a strange fucking dude. Liev Schrieber is AMAZING. It’s as if Cotton Weary tried to evade capture by pretending to be Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. He’s this salty, grumbling menace,
but also a pseudo-mentor. He’s a NASCAR Miyagi, someone who’ll throw you in the bottom of a well to teach you to swim and smoke cigarettes until you surface. If you surface. And hurry, cause he needs more Molson. I’ve already been lauding Seann William Scott throughout, but his Doug is yet another performance I didn’t expect out of the former Stifler. Scott manages to balance brutality with sweetness, manners with manhandling, and the end result is a lovable bulldog. You always root for Doug Glatt, and that’s all because of Scott’s spot-on thug you wanna hug performance. At first, Goon baffled me, because I thought Kevin Smith was doing the ever increasing, potentially gonna get away with him, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Pucks Hit Somebody with Seann William Scott. But for some reason or another, Smith went with Nicholas Braun, the big lanky bastard Billy-Ray from Red State. Which godspeed and good luck, because Baruchel, Goldberg, and Dowse have raised the bar and thrown down the gloves on you. Goon is everything you want in a hockey movie – the hilarious
violence of Slap Shot with the heart and mashed up face of Rocky circled
by the gaggle of whackjob that is the ensemble of Major League. From
the drop of the first puck to the last, ultraviolent and cringe-inducing
showdown between Rhea and Glatt (and honestly, if you consider that a
spoiler, you’ve never ever seen a sports film, and for shame), Goon
delivers. It’s playing in theatres in Canada, but you can still take the
chance to see it Video On Demand, iTunes, and YouTube before it opens
theatrically some time in April. Catch it, you fucking hoser. |
