A surprisingly touching guilty pleasure that offers much more than your average sports comedy.
Sean William Scott is in fine knockabout form here as a loveably dim-witted meathead who swaps busting heads in bars for a career as an ice hockey enforcer in the spit and sawdust minor leagues. Jay Baruchel penned this potty-mouthed piece with Superbad's Evan Goldberg and co-stars as the sweary best bud encouraging Scott's Doug Glatt to go 'gay porn hard' out on the ice.
From locker room initiation gross-out to typically raucous R-rated rudeness – "I want you to make lemonade inside my chocolate factory!" – Goon will soon thaw your winter blues and have you chuckling. Scott reckons he’s not bothered about being typecast these days – playing the jerk is his thing. But like Seth Rogen in Observe and Report or Jim Carrey’s twisted turn in The Cable Guy there’s more to his goon than punches and punchlines.
Director Michael Dowse, who made his name with clubber comedy It’s All Gone Pete Tong, delivers a more straight up ensemble piece than the likes of Will Ferrell hoop howler Semi-Pro, with smartly lensed fight scenes in which Scott’s newbie earns his spurs as the human battering ram "born with the fist of God".
With echoes of Paul Newman’s '70s dramedy Slap Shot, Doug moves up the ice fight rankings leaving a trail of blood-soaked rinks in his wake, leading to a Rocky-style showdown with veteran ass-kicker Liev Schreiber. A chance meeting between the two at a diner taps into the sadness of the clown as Schreiber’s career winds down and he laments his life as a goon – "They just wanna see you bleed…"
Underpinned by a surprisingly touching rom-com sub plot twinning Doug with Scott Pilgrim’s Alison Pill, Goon is pucking funny stuff.
Yet another gross out sports comedy. Sigh.
A pucking funny guilty pleasure.
If you’re going to watch just one sports comedy...
