Goat (2016)

Just what I expected

Great Film overall

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Goat: Directed by Andrew Neel and written by David Gordon Green, Andrew Neel and Mike RobertsGoat is a movie where we take the college hazing rituals, the kind that are gross, vile, humilating, embarassing and maybe a little funny, and we give them the Full Metal Jacket treatment. It is the story of two brothers, the older one already in the fraternity and the younger one who recently suffered a brutal assault. They enter into Hell Week and it is a descent into debaucherous behavior but from a more intense viewpoint. The film is quiet in places. It doesn't have the music lead you to where it wants you to go. It knows you will experience it without it. It offers no way out. This can be a difficult film to watch. Hazing has traditionally been the subject of comedy. It's funny to drink to excess, be paraded around campus in your underwear, stuck in a small cage after you've vomited all over yourself. This movie does wallow in those elements. It sets things up by establishing the close relationship the two brothers have before and after the assault. It drags you into what it must feel like watching someone you love go through this kind of humilation especially after suffering the kind of assault that he did. This was a powerful and very well made movie. It addressed what happens at these places and what it could possibly lead to. This movie is not something I would recommend to everyone. The tension does ratchet up a point that laughter is the only release possible. Be prepared for that when you enter into this film. I give this movie a B.

Goat is a look at the dark side of fraternity initiations and is a long way away from the comedy antics of Animal House.Brad (Ben Schnetzer) follows his popular brother Brett (Nick Jonas) to college. Right at the off he gets beaten up and mugged by some strangers at a party he gave a lift to.However much worse is to come as the new students need to survive hell week and various rites of passage that is associated when it comes to joining college fraternities even if hazing has been outlawed.These pledges are meant to be darkly comic but nauseating and the new students endure it for the prestige of joining a house and getting laid. Of course we know that tragedy will strike and brother Brett is already dubious about these frats and what they stand for and is worried about Brad.James Franco makes a comedic guest appearance as an older former college frat who drops in to tell the new recruits that being a member of the house means joining a brotherhood who always watch your back.Apart from the disturbing scenes of the various initiations and the fraternity members later falling apart when disaster strikes there is little story here. It is even not that interesting because it lacks the darkly comic humour that this film needed.

Goat starts off similar to such frat boy slapstick comedies as Animal House or the more recent Everybody Wants Some, but nowhere near as funny and entertaining, unless you count a ridiculous overblown cameo from James Franco as man in his mid-thirties who saw the best years of his life as being in the frat, which is why he shows up to say high once in a while. Off the bat the movie did show a tone that said it was going to be something different from the fun and games of Frat life.And the tone definitely sets up for the dark mood change. The second most famous person in this film, Nick Jonas, has a supporting role as a frat boy who was already semi-questioning the whole thing when his brother pledges during hell week, and it's not sitting well having to watch him going through the sick disturbing things they make them do.Goat, works to expose the harshness and the dangers of Hazing. It does a great job of giving a pretty no holds barred look at one of college's oldest traditions.But other than this view of how dark and disturbing the male bonding process can get, the movie has very little in a narrative story. Goat, acts like a document on something based on true events. You'll get nothing from it, no lesson learned, only the ugly truth on frat hazing.

I screened #GOAT starring #BenSchnetzer and #NickJonas and although the hazings in the film can get over the top, one can't help but wonder if hazings in real life frat out there can really get that violent, especially since the college I attended didn't have Greek houses so I never personally experienced pledges. But GOAT has its own way of rattling your comfort zone. The psychological pain the characters inflict on each other is more disturbing than last year's "The Stanford Prison Experiment." Directed by Andrew Neel, in GOAT, Ben Schnetzer's character, Brad Land earlier on in the story goes through an initial violence so traumatizing that it pretty much sets up his motivation throughout the entirety of this film. He joins his brother Brett's (Nick Jonas) fraternity and as the pledging ritual moves into hell week, the stakes grow more violent, more humiliating, and more torturous, all in the name of brotherhood, or is Brad trying to prove something else? Based on Brad Land's memoir, co-written by Andrew Neel, David Gordon Green and Mike Roberts, the film deals with the questions of which rites of passage are worth taking and which ones are not and where do you draw the line. There are plenty of hazings in this film, you really don't know what to expect because each of them is shocking in its own way, it becomes ingrained in Brad's psyche or his belief that this may be what is needed to be done for him to punish himself for the earlier event that victimized him. And to some of these brothers, this frat life has become all they know, this is all they have, they think it's the center of the universe so if you go against it, then consequences ensue. It's very intriguing to see Brad and this brotherhood collide and the effect they have on each other.GOAT is not a college comedy, it shows the darker, harsher side of what college life can offer. It's raw, unforgiving, and it punches you in the gut. You will feel uncomfortable watching GOAT and that is one of the film's main goals. I'd be very interested to see a featurette or behind-the-scenes videos showing how they shot some of the hazing scenes, just to see how the actors mentally prepped for them. I'd like to believe that GOAT doesn't necessarily intend on demonizing frat or Greek houses, I'm sure there are many brotherhoods out there that don't go over the line in their rituals but it does show that when we join a group, any group, it's best to analyze whether or not that group would be beneficial for our personal growth given our previous life experiences.-- Rama's Screen --