BASED ON THE MEMOIR of minor-league hockey player Doug Smith, Goon tells the story of Doug Glatt, a Boston hockey fan who joins the Halifax Highlanders as the team's enforcer—in other words, the guy who beats the shit out of the other team and spends most of the game in the penalty box. Glatt's played by Seann William Scott, and he's amiably likable despite his character's brutal violence, and that's more or less the case with Goon, which starts off as a crude, crass comedy, then becomes a crude, crass sports flick about the triumph of the human spirit and the camaraderie that comes from beating holy hell out of your fellow man.

The screenplay's co-written by actor Jay Baruchel, which seems weird, and it's sort of a teetering, lazy narrative—Glatt's character is well drawn, but no one else's is, particularly the character Baruchel's written for himself, the unbearably obnoxious best friend. I'd wager that Goon has more f-bombs per minute than Scarface, plus there's blood and pee jokes and sleazy sex galore. The comedy's totally hit and miss, but hockey fans could very well take Goon to heart as the hockey-comedy genre's successor to Slap Shot. (Take that, The Mighty Ducks.)