DVD

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This article was published 31/05/2012 (5189 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Goon

COMPARED with the other Canadian hockey films (such as the ghastly Score: A Hockey Musical), Michael Dowse’s Goon comes off as a classic of the sports genre: a bloody, raucous, yet endearingly goofy little movie, the closest Canadian cinema has ever come to the acknowledged apex of the subgenre, Slap Shot.

Scripted by Jay Baruchel and Evan Goldberg, Goon offers up an unlikely hero in the person of Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott). Coming as he does from an intellectual Jewish family, it is Doug and not his smarter gay brother who qualifies as the black sheep. He may be sweet-tempered and innocent, but Doug is just not that bright.

The professional bouncer is only a hockey spectator until he rises to the defence of his best friend Pat (Baruchel), a loud-mouthed hockey fanatic, at a game. Doug knocks a marauding enforcer unconscious with one punch, gaining the attention of a minor-league team. They need a tough guy to protect their underperforming star player Xavier Laflamme (Marc-André Grondin), a once-promising NHL player rendered gun-shy after receiving a cheap shot from the notorious hockey enforcer Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber).

Doug starts to blossom in the reviled role of goon, first finding purpose and then love with Eva (Alison Pill), a beautiful young fan who reveals a darker aspect beneath her peaches-and-cream facade when she cops to getting turned on by hockey violence.

Inevitably, he is obliged to meet his ultimate challenge in a showdown with Rhea, who faces the minor-league close of his career eager to make one last impression, preferably on the face of Doug Glatt.

To some extent, it’s actually Scott who lets the team down. A movie with such excessive content requires carefully modulated performances. Schreiber gets it: He makes Ross Rhea a credible, fearsome brute without much in the way of villainous embellishment. Scott plays it a little too sweet, a bruised-knuckles naif.

A hockey goon is the one member of the hockey team who knows he isn’t there to be liked. Scott’s eagerness to be loved doesn’t ruin the movie, but does earn him an offside penalty.

The Blu-ray DVD features dozens of behind-the-scenes snippets and interviews, with some illuminating footage deconstructing the hockey fight. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö 1/2 out of five

The Aggression Scale

“LOUD and messy, Lloyd.”

So instructs a malevolent crime kingpin (Ray Wise) to his nasty subordinate (Dana Ashbrook) on the manner in which Lloyd and his men will kill anyone remotely connected to the theft of the hoodlum’s bankroll.

Lloyd and his trio of thugs eventually find themselves in the new home of the perpetrator, a nice-guy dad named Bill (Boyd Kestner) trying to put together a working blended family with his girlfriend and her daughter Lauren ( ).

The reason for his larceny has to do with Bill’s disturbed 12-year-old son Owen (Ryan Hartwig), a kid whose penchant for violence had landed him in an institution with little hope of freedom. (The title refers to a standard psychological threat assessment: Owen scores off the charts.) When the bad guys invade, Owen and his new stepsister flee, only to take matters into their own young hands.

A making-of documentary on the DVD refers to this movie’s concept, not inaccurately, as Home Alone meets Rambo.

The home-invasion thriller is often botched (see the recent DVD release Mother’s Day) but not here. The Aggression Scale may be a B-movie, but it’s the best kind of B-movie: crisp, taut and compelling. The work of director Steven C. Miller (who recently helmed the Manitoba-shot horror thriller Silent Night) recalls the siege thrillers of a young John Carpenter, such as Assault on Precinct 13, in the way he establishes a threat and then slowly ratchets up the suspense.

He is also good with his cast, especially his young actors. Hartwig is an intense little dude, and Therese proves to be a refreshing change from the usual teen damsel in distress. Lauren proves to be a kindred spirit to Owen, a self-mutilating teen who learns by necessity to channel her violence outwards instead of inwards, as a matter of survival.

Award additional geek points to Miller for reuniting Wise and Ashbrook, two of the stars of David Lynch’s landmark TV series Twin Peaks. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö 1/2

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca