The word "goon" means either a hired thug or a stupid or awkward person. And Doug Glatt, as played by Seann William Scott, qualifies as both in Canadian Michael Dowse's terminally vulgar but often hilarious ice hockey comedy.
Emanating from a highly respectable Jewish family, Doug is definitely the black sheep. He can only find a job as a bouncer for a backroom bar, where he deploys a hook that Henry Cooper would have admired. His parents are even more ashamed of him than they are of his determinedly promiscuous gay brother and permanently wasted best friend (Jay Baruchel).
He is, however, a gentle soul and proud when an ice hockey coach signs him up to protect La Flamme (Marc-Andre Grodin), the screwed-up star of the flailing Halifax Highlanders. Having learned stumblingly to ski, he is sent out onto the ice not to play the game but to punch anybody who roughs up La Flamme into unconsciousness as quickly as possible.
The refs don't like it and send him regularly to the sin-bin but Coach is delighted and the Highlanders begin to win.
Meanwhile, there's Eva (Alison Pill), a flighty ice hockey groupie who begins to appreciate more than Doug's left hook. His naïve but determined courtship makes him a man of a kind she's never met before.
I'm not sure that this rough and ready comedy would seem so funny were it not for Scott's charming performance as the man with dynamite in his fists and fudge in his heart. Dowse, an ice-hockey fan, has also helped by making the sporting scenes on the rink credible and imbuing the caricatured characters with more than a smidgeon of bleary-eyed truth. There is also a shrewd portrait by Liev Shreiber as a notoriously violent playmaker who is just about to retire but wants one last brawl to satisfy his fans. It is, of course, the goon he chooses to crunch.
With a screenplay that conforms to the present propensity for saying things you couldn't possibly get away with before the witching hour of 9pm on television, persistent sexual jokes and some blood-splashing violence, this film is likely to have a wider appeal than most sports pictures. One hopes, however, that might just be because of Scott's performance in one of the most raucous movies you might otherwise hope not to see.
Goon
Cert: 15
