Thoughts on Goon: Last of the Enforcers

Goon: Last of the Enforcers is a freakin’ awesome movie. The original is a dirty and hilarious sports comedy where Seann William Scott plays this sweet but dopey hockey enforcer on a rag tag Canadian team. I adored the first movie, and the sequel carries on the story perfectly. Scott’s character Doug gets the shit beaten out of him by a rival enforcer (Wyatt Russell), who is pretty much a psycho Thor on the ice, ending his career. And he has to learn how to balance his love of his team, his desire to come back, and being a supportive partner to his pregnant wife (Alison Pill).

This is my favorite role of Scott’s, next to Country Mac as his guest role in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Despite his typecasting as a perverted smug douchebag, he comes off as a sweet and nice guy in interviews, and playing Doug gives him way more heart and kindness than those earlier roles did. He just plays this dim but sweet guy who isn’t inherently violent, but just happens to be really good at kicking ass on the ice, and just loves the warm brotherhood of his international teammates, whose crude humor in their Russian and French-Canadian accents is hysterical.

I cracked up hard during a scene where Russell’s character Cain is supposed to deliver a motivational speech as team captain, but instead just berates everyone with constant swearing and abusive insults. It was like the antithesis of Kurt Russell’s inspirational speeches from Miracle, and hilarious to see his son deliver that scene.

I don’t know anything about hockey, but I love how this movie captures the insanity and love of the game. The first film was a huge hit in Canada, and this film definitely has close ties to Canada and real hockey, between it being directed by the French-Canadian Jay Baruchel, and featuring Russell and Elisha Cuthbert, both who have real-life experience with the sport (Russell was a serious player; Cuthbert dated hockey players), and really feeling like a hometown hero kind of movie.

The sequel really progressed the story forward, it wasn’t redundant, and it felt like there was more maturity and growth with the characters, especially with Doug, Pill’s character (who was adjusting from being a beer-loving hockey groupie to being the pregnant wife of an injured player), and Liev Schreiber’s character, a formerly violent enforcer worn down by age, but could still have some fight left in him. I highly recommend this movie if you like sports movies or dirty, crude humor.