Goon: Last of the Enforcers 2017

What were once somewhat charming characters become caricatures of what they once were. Where Doug was 'dumb' before, now he's that kind of stupid you only find in sitcoms; Pat goes from Doug's vulgar buddy, to just vulgar; and the story introduces Anders (anger incarnate) and Eva's sister (who is basically what Eva played herself up to be in the first movie, taken to the extreme).

Most notably, the relationship with Doug and Eva is forced to 'grow up', and Doug, in turn, becomes insensitive and ignorant to the needs of the girl he was once so sweet to. Ultimately, it wrings all the charm out of the first movie (which wasn't exactly a shining beacon, but at least it was a nice little watch, and nice to see Sean William Scott not being typecasted as the Stifler-esque douchebag role), all for a sequel that never needed to be made in the first place.

I'm not someone who hates franchises, I like spending time with familiar characters we've grown to love, but at the same time, some movies are just meant to stand on their own and tell a simple story with a simple message. Goon was such a movie, something that never needed a sequel, and never deserved to have this piece of crap taint its memory.

If you enjoyed Goon and you're reading this review before watching the sequel... Just watch the first one again, and save yourself the pain of this awful continuation.

The only saving grace of this movie is Liev Schreiber, which is not something I would normally expect, since I'm not a particular fan of his (not that I find him objectionable either, I just didn't expect him to be the highlight here).

The original film ‘The Goon’ was a great sports film based around ice-hockey. It was vulgar, crass, violent but with a soft-centre. The main character Doug was apparently only good at one thing, punching people in the face and knocking them out stone-cold, he wasn’t particularly bright but was loveable and loyal. Everything that perhaps shouldn’t work but with Seann William Scott cast as Doug it was dragged over the line. Not perfect, it was no Slap Shot, but in the small pantheon of ice-hockey films, it was up there. Moderately successful it was no real surprise the Goon was going to get a sequel so here we have Goon: The Last of the Enforcers.

Personally, after the ending of the first film I could not see where the director and writer Jay Baruchel could take his cast of oddball characters to in a sequel. Baruchel cast himself as Doug’s loyal but frankly vile friend in the first film and he returns in the sequel but his hazily sketched character has gone nowhere and is just foul-mouthed and frankly unpleasant – it was bearable in the first but outlived the welcome in the second film.

Unfortunately, that is the major problem with this film, with the exception of Liev Schrieber and Alison Pill most of the characters, including Doug, haven’t gone anywhere from the first film and don’t appear to learn anything from the lessons handed to them in The Goon. Making more or less the same film as the first is not the way to go with any sequel.

The film starts on very familiar territory and is all the better for it but once the utter madman Cain is introduced (he’d be banned from every league forever) we start on a slippery slope of ever diminishing returns.

Doug gets an emotional farewell at the end of the film that seems to point to this being the end and despite Seann William Scott putting in a likeable performance again and well supported by Schrieber and Pill I do hope he hangs up his skates and calls it a day, just like every hockey player good or bad has to do eventually.

It has to be flagged that Baruchel added in the ringing, concussion-like symptoms to the fighters during the film to pay a sombre and pertinent point to the very real and very serious problem of concession injuries hockey players are getting due to being punched in the head over many seasons. It’s a contentious topic that many fans get hot-under-the-collar about with lovers of all-out-brawling seemingly hiding their heads in the sand even as the evidence mounts up around them. So Goon: The Last of Enforcers has to be applauded for taking on a contentious and hot-topic even if it was just a quick glance in its direction before returning to the vulgarities of the locker-room.

All-in-all this is a disappointment, the ice-hockey games are unrealistic and look exactly what they are, staged. It’s a great shame as much from the first story is repeated over and over again and this quickly disengaged my attention and I become bored and I’m a big fan of ice-hockey. There are laughs but too few and I was expected to laugh at one-liners and situations that I had seen previously.

A sequel to The Goon could have had something to say about the life of hockey enforcers in a funny and interesting way, it could have been controversial but sadly the makers went down the safer route of rinse and repeat. The main players keep this from being really dire but it was hard not feel disappointed and a little let down.

The Goon: The Last of the Enforcers never even made the play-offs.