Character Analysis: Doug Glatt
By: Brian Cotnoir
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| Doug Glatt from "Goon" |
I am a sports
guy. I may not have played (or have been
very good at sports in my youth, but I always enjoyed watching them. I enjoy
all kinds of sports, Football, Baseball, Auto Racing, Hockey, Basketball, it
doesn’t matter to me, if it’s good and entertaining I’ll watch it...well, as
long as my favorite teams are winning.
Plus, I grew up in the 90’s, which was like the Golden Age of the Sports
movies for kids: “The Mighty Ducks”,
“Rookie of the Year”, “The Little Giants”, and “Cool Runnings”, are just a few example
of some of the great sports movies we got between the late 1980’s and 1990’s. So I decided for this edition of Character
Analysis I wanted to write one on a character from a Sports film, and the first
character that popped into my mind comes from a newer (and lesser known) sports
movie from 2011, “Goon”. So if you haven’t seen “Goon” yet, I highly
recommend you go and do it after you read this Analysis of the films
protagonist, Doug “The Thug” Glatt.
CHARACTER: Doug
Glatt from “Goon” (2011)
Doug Glatt is a
bouncer from the small fictional town of Orangetown, Massachusetts. Doug feels ostracized for not being more like
his family. Unlike his father and older
brother, Ira, who are successful doctors, Doug is clumsy, and bumbles when he
talks, or tries to talk back to someone, and often viewed as an embarrassment
and disappointment by his parents and the members of the Jewish Temple they
attend.
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| Doug with Orangetown Assassins |
One night, Doug attends a local minor
league hockey game with his buddy, Pat.
After Pat taunts a player on the opposing team who was sent to the
penalty box, the player goes into the stands to fight. Doug tries to de-escalate the situation, but
after the player calls him and Pat “faggots”. Doug takes serious offense to
that word because his older brother Ira is gay and proceeds to violently pummel
the player in the stands to the astonishment of the fans and other hockey
players. The next day while appearing on
Pat’s Public Access TV Show, “Hot Ice”, Doug is invited by the coach of the
Orangetown Assassins, who witnessed the fight in the stands, and invites Doug
to come and try out for the team. Doug
is mocked by the other members of the Assassins for his poor ice skating and
his inability to come up with insults, but then he decides to let his fists to
the talking, and beats up multiple players on the team. The coach of the Assassins sees that Doug is
a sweet-natured—almost childlike—adult, but believes that with Doug on the team
as their enforcer he can help lead the team to victory.
Doug’s coach in Orangetown tells him that his
brother Ronnie, who is also hockey coach for a Minor League Team, wants to sign
Doug to a contract with his team the Halifax Highlanders. Coach Ronnie wants him to protect a star
player, named Xavier LaFlamme, who was once a promising prospect, but after
suffering a serious concussion in one of his first Pro Hockey Games, is to
petrified to play effectively because of his fear of getting hit again. Doug journey’s to Halifax to join the
Highlanders, and is not only going to be Xavier LaFlamme’s protector on the
ice, but also his roommate.
The Highlanders are a “who’s who”
of misfits and other failed hockey prospects.
Doug is the only person who is proud to be a member of the Highlanders,
and is constantly seeking the approval of teammates and is always looking to
them for guidance. Doug makes an
immediate impact on the team, by knocking out an opposing player with just one
punch, which earns him the admiration of his new coach, his teammates (except
LaFlamme), and a local girl, named Eva, who Doug has a crush on.
Doug’s family and Pat journey up to
Halifax to see him play, and are mortified when they see him get into a fight
on the ice, while the entire arena chants “Doug the Thug!”. After the game, Doug’s parents try to get him
to give up playing hockey, but he doesn’t want to because he finally feels like
he’s good at something and a part of something important. Doug’s parents continue to express their
disappointment with him, and tell him that they basically view him as an
embarrassment, and leave in disgust. The
only people in Doug’s lives who are supportive of his hockey fighting are his
friend Pat, his older brother Ira, and Eva.
THE ACTOR:
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| Actor Sean William Scott plays Doug Glatt in "Goon" |
Doug Glatt is played by actor Sean William Scott, who most
people remember as the guy who played Steve Stiffler in the “American Pie” film franchise. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed Sean
William Scott in this role because you really get to see how good of an actor
he really is. Scott has appeared in
other films that got much wider releases, but were absolutely despised by
critics and audiences such as “Role
Models”, “Dukes of Hazzard”, “Dude, Where’s My Car?”, “Mr. Woodcock”, and “Movie 43”. I feel by appearing in a lesser known film that only got
a limited release, people can finally see the true acting talents of Sean
William Scott, and not just assume he’s playing some doofy or moronic character
who likes to smoke weed.
CHARACTER
IS SIMILAR TO OR INSPIRED BY:
The character of Doug Glatt was inspired by a real life minor
league hockey player named Doug Smith, who also was an enforcer. The film itself is a loose adaptation of the
book “Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey”.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Doug
shares similarities with characters from other ice hockey movies such as the
Hanson Brothers from the 1970’s cult classic Hockey film “Slap Shot”, and also Dean Portman from “D-2:The Mighty Ducks”, as they are also both enforcers on a hockey
team.
I
would also say that Doug has a lot of similarities with Adam Sandler’s
character Bobby Boucher from “The
Waterboy” because both are sweet-natured simple men, who are fans of their
sport and get recruited to join a losing sports team after the coaches witness
them commit an extreme act of violence against an opposing player. Both of their parents disapprove them playing
their sport, and both have found a girlfriend who is first attracted to them
because of their physicality of play.
Bobby Boucher from "The Waterboy"
FATE OF THE
CHARACTER:
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| Doug fights Ross Rhea |
In the final game of the season and with the playoffs on the
line, Doug and the Highlanders must face off against the St. Johns Shamrocks,
and their brutal enforcer Ross “The Boss” Rhea.
Rhea promised to “lay [Doug] the f*ck out” if they ever met on the
ice. In one of the most brutal hockey
fights ever seen, Doug knocks out Rhea—with a broken ankle no less—and then
skates off to the locker room to have his ankle treated. Doug’s showing of toughness and bravery
inspires his roommate/teammate Xavier LaFlamme to play his heart out and goes
on to score a hat trick that wins them the game. While waiting in the locker room with his
girlfriend Eva, Doug reflects on the fight he just had with Rhea uttering, “I
think I nailed him”.
*”Goon 2: The Last of the Enforcers”, the sequel to this film is scheduled for release in 2017, I will post a follow up to this Character Analysis once it is released and I get a chance to see it*
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