Goon

Plot

Doug Glatt is a polite, kind-hearted, but dim-witted bouncer at a local dive bar in the fictional hockey crazed town of Orangetown, Massachusetts. He feels ostracized from society, especially since his father and brother are both highly educated wealthy and successful physicians.

Doug attends a local minor league hockey game with his best friend, Pat, who hosts a public broadcast show recapping weekly hockey highlights called Hot Ice. Pat taunts the visiting team during a fight and one of their players climbs into the stands while shouting out a homophobic slur. Doug, whose brother is gay, steps in and easily beats up the opposing player. The next day, he gets a phone call from the coach of his hometown team Orangetown Assassins, who offers him a tryout to be an enforcer. He gets the position despite being a hilariously bad skater, and trains relentlessly to bring his skills up to par.

Meanwhile, legendary veteran enforcer, Ross "The Boss" Rhea is demoted to the minors after serving a 20-game suspension for slashing an opponent in the head from behind. Three years prior, he hit and concussed the highly skilled prospect Xavier Laflamme, who has had trouble recovering from the incident due to his fear of being hit again.

As a result, Laflamme is still stuck in the minors, playing for the Halifax Highlanders. As Doug's reputation grows, he earns the nickname "Doug the Thug". The head coach of the Assassins tells Doug that his brother, Highlanders' coach Ronnie, wants to hire him to protect Laflamme and be his roommate.

The Highlanders experience success with Doug as their enforcer, and he quickly becomes popular among fans and teammates, much to the disapproval of his parents and Laflamme, who loses ice time and the alternate-captaincy to him. Doug meets Eva, a hockey fan with a penchant for sleeping with players at a bar in Halifax and the two become romantically involved.

With four games left on their schedule, the Highlanders need two wins to secure a playoff spot. On a road game in Quebec, after an opposing player concusses Laflamme with a heavy hit, Doug savagely beats the player unconscious and is suspended for the next game against Rhea and the St. John's Shamrocks.

Production notes

The film is an adaptation of the book Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith. Footage from Smith's career as an enforcer is shown during the film's credits, and Smith said in an interview with Grantland.com that he is happy with the finished film. The book was discovered by Jesse Shapira and his producing partner David Gross. Along with Baruchel and Goldberg, they developed the script and then proceeded to package and independently finance the movie. It was the first film under their No Trace Camping banner.

Some scenes are based on actual incidents, such as Glatt scoring a goal off his butt. "Dangerous" Doug Mann of the Columbus Cottonmouths scored a goal in overtime of Game 5 of the Central Hockey League Eastern Conference Finals against the Huntsville Channel Cats, when the puck deflected off his butt scoring the game's winning goal, sending Columbus to the Finals.

Former NHL enforcer Georges Laraque has a small role as an enforcer for the Albany Patriots. His character fights both Glatt and Rhea over the course of the film. He draws with Glatt and the outcome of his fight with Rhea is not shown. When Laraque's character fights Glatt, the dialogue closely resembles the dialogue used by Georges Laraque in a fight against Raitis Ivanāns in December 2006.

Goon was filmed in Brandon, Portage la Prairie and Winnipeg, Manitoba. Most of the hockey scenes were filmed at Stride Place (Portage Credit Union Centre at the time of filming), in Portage la Prairie, which substituted for the Halifax Metro Centre, the home arena for the Halifax Highlanders. Other hockey scenes were filmed at the St. James Civic Centre in Winnipeg and Westoba Place (the former Keystone Centre) in Brandon. Canada Life Centre (MTS Centre at the time) was used for the home arena of the Quebec Victoires. The Hot Ice public access TV show was filmed inside Tec Voc High School's Broadcasting Media Arts department. It also featured actors Robb Wells, Mike Smith, and John Paul Tremblay who play characters Ricky, Bubbles and Julian from Trailer Park Boys, as control room staff.

Release

A red-band trailer for the film was released on IGN.

In Toronto and Montreal, prior to its premiere, posters for the film were removed from city bus shelters after several complaints from the public due to Baruchel making a "sexually suggestive gesture with his tongue and fingers." Publicity campaigns in the English Canada market focused on William Scott and Schreiber, while another catered for Quebec tastes amplified French-Canada actor Marc-Andre Grondin, then known best in the region for his role in “C.R.A.Z.Y.”

Alliance crafted dual publicity campaigns for “Goon,” one that featured Hollywood actors Seann William Scott and Liev Schreiber, which rolled out in most of the country, while another catered to Quebec tastes and focused on Francophone star Marc-Andre Grondin (“C.R.A.Z.Y.”).

The timing of the film's release was considered controversial by some as the previous summer featured the deaths of three NHL enforcers – Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak – all three of whom suffered from depression and head trauma that are believed to be factors in their deaths.

In Canada, "Goon" opened simultaneously in its original English-language version and a dubbed French translation for the Quebec market. It scored almost double the average market share in Quebec on its opening weekend, and nationwide ranked No. 1 at the box office, above several new Hollywood titles, including "Hall Pass." "Goon" brought in an estimated $1.2 million from 251 screens on its first three days of screening, as of Feb. 26. 2012.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 106 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Goon is a crude slapstick comedy with well-formed characters and a surprising amount of heart." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, and wrote: "The charm of Goon is that Doug Glatt (Scott) is a genial guy from a nice family. Just because he hands out concussions doesn't mean he dislikes anybody. He's just happy to be wearing a uniform."

Robert Koehler of Variety magazine praised the performances: "The picture has a first-rate team of actors who visibly enjoy their roles and the sharp dialogue by Baruchel and Goldberg."

Stephen Holden, writing for The New York Times, gave a positive review that credits all the major performances.

In 2023, Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail named the film as one of the 23 best Canadian comedy films ever made.

Accolades

Goon was nominated in six categories at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards: Michael Dowse for Best Director, Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg for Best Adapted Screenplay, Bobby Shore for Best Cinematography, Lori Caputi and Brenda Magalas for Best Makeup, and Jay Baruchel and Kim Coates, both for Best Supporting Actor.

Sequel

Baruchel wrote a sequel with Jesse Chabot. Michael Dowse was slated to return to direct but it was Baruchel who directed the film, making it his directorial debut. Evan Goldberg produced the sequel. The title of the film is Goon: Last of the Enforcers.

Baruchel expressed interest in the possibility of a third film, "I don’'t want to get into trouble, and I'm not saying there's going to be a Goon 3," Baruchel says, "but there's more than one way to skin a cat. We're not done in this universe yet."