Goon (and sport films)

[Famous Mortimer]

I just finished watching the Seann William Scott film "Goon", the based-on-a-true-story tale of a regional ice hockey league's most notorious enforcer (the bloke who's paid to go out and fight, basically). It starts off as a bit of a slapstick comedy, but then gradually amps up the heart of the thing, until at the end I found myself really emotionally committed to it. A surprisingly excellent film, all told.

So, have you watched it? What about other sport films and the beats they use to get you emotionally involved? "Escape to Victory" is one of my favourite films ever as well.

[SavageHedgehog]

I saw it in the cinema, and liked it overall, although it took a long time to win me over; at one stage it seemed to be nothing more than a chain of lame dick jokes with the occasional beating. But Sean William Scott makes the central character really interesting and oddly lovable, and his performance is something of a Tour de Force. Alison Pill wasn't too bad either. It reminded me more of Observe and Report than other sports movies (though I've never seen Slap Shot, which I've heard was a big "influence").

[Mini]

The first sports film that comes to mind is Moneyball because I saw it recently and really enjoyed it. One of those films where you need no interest in the subject - in this case baseball - to get you completely involved. Brad Pitt is sublime.

[mikeyg27]

Slap Shot is the daddy of all sports films - gloriously cynical in its approach and probably my favourite ending to a film ever - everything from

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"scouts?" and the jump cut to the massive brawl

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onwards is sublime, especially because

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it completely undoes and subverts the redemption arc that the final game tries to set up for Reggie, with his attempts to go honest and instead re-establishes his willingness to do scrape the bottom of the barrel.

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.

[Ian Benson]

Really liked 'Goon', especially

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the section where Doug says that stuff about E.T. and then on the ice he's punching that guy in the face whilst looking at the pretty boy guy the whole time and then they pass each other and the camera is sort of on their shoulders and they smile

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. Thought Scott was great.

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It's actually, I'm guessing intentionally, like a superhero movie in places, what with the fist to the ground thing that happens a couple of times (I think), and just generally in the sense of how it plays out.

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But yeah, struggled with it a bit at the start and was almost cheering towards the end. Not really much of a laugher but certainly a smiler.

'Moneyball' is good too. It really wins you over. Haven't seen 'Slap Shot' but keep hearing good things about it so should check it out.

In terms of beats, underdog and/or sort-of good vs. evil stories do the job. I think a team coming together and figuring out their individual strengths, and then seeing that in action, is a good set-up/triumphant pay-off move. A player or coach who's past it but is given one last shot seems to come up a lot. Also I suppose a quite simplistic and running-in-the-background approach to the sport is smart so as to not alienate part of the audience/overshadow the characters. As stated by Mini, Moneyball does this really well -

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Pitt wants to change the way things have always been done, which most people can relate to and apply to some aspect of their own life.

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. Push the characters to the fore, give them a relatable goal, and you're away. Sport is a metaphor for struggle and most everyone is struggling with something. Impossible odds, learning lessons, succeeding in the end, triumph, everyone cheering. The whole stadium cheers, as if there were no fans for the other team present. A cheering mass of people is a nice way to end a movie because we want to see lots of people being happy. Thinking about it, even the very worst sports movie can sucker me in if I'm the right mood for it.

A sports film that I quite liked at the time is 'Bull Durham' by Ron Shelton but I can't really remember much about it now. Ron Shelton seems to do quite a lot of sports movies if memory serves. Ron Shelton is also quite an amusing name.

[SteveDave]

I saw half of the Bad News Bears on Film Four the other week & was surprised that none of the language was edited considering it was showing at 6.30 on a Sunday evening. The N word was used several times, as well as "spick" & "retard". From what I saw it looked good though. The young Jackie Earle Thingy was in it. He looked scarily similar to how he looks now. Which is to be expected.