2011âs hockey comedy Goon wasnât groundbreaking, but it was groundedâyou could feel the shoosh of skates scraping across ice and smell the funky pads in the locker room. It had a casualness that allowed you to smile even when you werenât laughing, and a subtle charm that seemed to grow with subsequent cable viewings.
By contrast, Goon: Last Of The Enforcersâwritten and directed by Jay Baruchel, and available On Demand and on iTunesâis so manic and convoluted that the only thing it reeks of is desperation. Seann William Scottâs winningly inarticulate Doug Glatt has been replaced by a kind of all-purpose randomness dispenser who, in the first scene, says, âOne time I had a dream that I was captain of a monkey ship. There were all these monkeys hanging aroundâdancing, singing, wearing little monkey sailor hats.â It basically kicks out the very foundation of the characterâbeing too uncurious to imagine a life for himself that doesnât involve beating up other hockey playersâin the hopes weâll laugh at a throwaway monkey joke.
Dougâs BFF, Pat (Baruchel), is also back, complete with the same Masshole accent, a hat that says âFUCK WHITE PEOPLE,â an Africa medallion, and the habit of entering rooms telling people how he was just âdropping meatball loads from my asshole.â Neat? His characterâthe only major problem with the first Goonâis an incoherent mix of obnoxious things, sort of like the rest of this movie. Last of the Enforcers trades the winning rivalry of doomed anti-heroes for an incoherent storyline involving Anders Cain (played by lost Kings of Leon member Wyatt Russell), whoâs meant to be rival, usurper, rich daddyâs boy, reluctant brute, and sadist, all rolled into one.
Most sports movies traffic in clichĂ©s. Goon: Last of the Enforcers canât even decide which ones to use. Give this hockey puck a hard pass.







