Movie Review: GOON

Release date: March 30, 2012 (ltd., wider release April 13, 2012)
Directed by: Michael Dowse
Screenplay by: Jay Baruchel & Evan Goldberg
Inspired by the book “Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey” by Adam Frattasio & Doug Smith
Cast: Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Marc-André Grondin, Kim Coates, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber
Rating: R
Running Time: 92 minutes

Nobody plays a dunderhead quite like Seann William Scott. Stretching back to 1999′s American Pie, the amount of dimwitted characters he’s played probably outnumbers any of those characters’ individual IQs.

In Goon, Scott is at it again, playing the sweet but dim Doug Glatt, a Boston nightclub bouncer turned Canadian minor league ice hockey enforcer (or, as the position is referred to in hockey jargon, “the Goon”). Bookended by vibrant red drops of blood splashing on ice as a tooth, in slo-mo, falls from some hapless victim’s mouth, the film jumps into the fray with Doug, as spectator, finds himself in the middle of a punch-fest during a local hockey game.

Next thing he knows, the coach asks Doug to try out for the team. But there’s a problem: our hero doesn’t know how to skate. However, this small impediment doesn’t stop the coach from sending Doug up to a professional minor league team in Halifax. It turns out that since Doug is only needed for his fists, staying upright on the ice is a minimal issue at best.

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