There’s blood and the odd tooth on the ice at the beginning and at the end of Goon, which features more fighting than most boxing or war movies. But this supposed sports comedy movie is about Canadian hockey; that is to say, about vicious and bloody brawling on skates during a supposed sporting event.

Seann William Scott plays a young man who’s not too bright and can hardly skate, but boy, he can punch out the best of them and so has a great future as an enforcer in minor hockey with the Halifax Highlanders.

Liev Schreiber plays the champion enforcer on a rival team who’s about to retire and everyone wants to see what happens when Scott and Schreiber finally mix it up. The fact that their teams are in a critical game to decide who makes the playoffs is a minor sideplot. What’s really important is the fight. No free popcorn for guessing who wins the punch-out, or for guessing the number of times characters use the f-word (reportedly over 300). It’s a real barrel of laughs.

The movie, directed by Calgary-born Michael Dowse (of Fubar fame), is based on a book of the same name about minor hockey enforcer Doug Smith. If you hang around for the credits you get to see him punching out various opponents.

Re: Oscar predictions last week. I was right in seven out of eight, even happy that Meryl Streep won for The Iron Lady (yet another Oscar winning movie that hasn’t played Red Deer).

Rating: two deer out of five

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Alf Cryderman is a Red Deer freelance writer and old movie buff.