Rent Goon (2011)

Goon review by Melissa Orcine - Cinema Paradiso

What does it take to be a goon, especially on the ice? In ‘Goon’, Doug ‘The Thug’ Glatt (Seann William Scott) is one, and he didn’t exactly sign up for it. As a bouncer for a local pub in Orangetown, Massachusetts, Doug is great at his job – he can throw a mean punch, he can wrestle you to the ground – it’s really a gift, even though his parents don’t approve (Doug has an Ivy-Leaguer for a brother. Only gay. Still, his brother Ira is better off than him!).

When Doug and a friend watch an ice hockey game, Doug’s life is about to change. Because when people start pounding on his friend, he equally pounds those people back, and it catches the attention of a hockey team. Doug is then hired as an ‘enforcer’, one who protects a team’s star player from other bloodthirsty enforcers from another team. Doug doesn’t have to know the rules of ice hockey to play. He’s not exactly playing. He just has to be a ‘Goon’.

Directed by Michael Dowse and written by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg, film takes no qualms in making a hero out of a zero in Doug Glatt and Seann William Scott plays him with the right amount of charm and brute that the audience would root for.

The villain in the story is Liev Schreiber as the legendary enforcer Ross Rhea. Both Scott and Schreiber don full-on mullets and mustaches in the movie and these accessories add to their characters and do not diminish their personas. That alone makes ‘Goon’ a comedy, if I may say. Besides bumps, bruises, and missing teeth, Doug has another brutal beating to contend with – his love affair with Eva (Allison Pill), who has a boyfriend but can’t seem to resist Doug for all his doofus-ness. Soon Doug realizes being an enforcer is not as cracked up as it’s supposed to be – he wants to play proper ice hockey. If they’ll let him.

With all its crudeness and violence this is surprisingly good-natured film. Who knew, right?