Goon

Sean William Scott plays Doug Glatt, a twenty-something whose life is stuck in neutral, but because he shows a natural aptitude for beating people up, is signed by a local hockey team to be their enforcer, or goon. He's quickly picked up by a minor league hockey team, and assigned to protect a former first-round pick that seems to have lost his fire for the game. Cue typical sports movie stuff.

The movie seems to be about Doug trying to find a place he belongs, where he's accepted and appreciated for who he is. He thinks he's found it with the team, where he's part of the group, where people cheer for him and buy a jersey with his name on the back. But he's contrasted with a different enforcer, played by Liev Schreiber, who is about to retire. They talk once, and Schreiber explains that they aren't hockey players, they're just goons. Doug protests that he is a hockey player, he plays hockey.

But it seems like any time he tries to do anything on the ice outside the narrow confines of beating up anyone who messes with his teammates, he gets screamed at about it. He tries to stay on the ice and play defense and allows a goal, and gets blamed for losing the game. He fights a guy even though he's already broken his ankle, has his face turned into hamburger, everyone cheers. Doug seems happy, but was Schreiber's character right? Maybe Doug has accepted it, and it's enough. They do love him, he is part of something, he is technically a hockey player. Maybe that's enough.

Scott plays Doug as being extremely awkward, and more than a little slow, even before he's routinely being punched in the head. It makes the scenes during the romance subplot kind of painful to watch. But even those are significantly better than every scene with Jay Baruchel, who plays Doug's foul-mouthed, homophobic imbecile best friend. I know there are sports fans (and other people) out there just like him, but that doesn't make him any less obnoxious.