Goat

The title and promotional photo of this film serve as early warnings that this is going to be an unpleasant story, especially because it's not labeled a comedy as many frat movies tend to be.

This is the story of Brad, a sweet guy from the midwest, who joins his real-life brother's fraternity. Having gone through the college fraternity experience myself, I can attest to this film's realistic portrayal of hell week and brotherhood. But the story, as good as the acting is, lacks insight into why the brothers continue putting pledges through horrific initiations year after year. We get no view into what the active brothers are plotting each day and why. Neither are we privy to their conversations outside the hazing. There's brief conflict between Jonas and his peers, but it's so short, and it would have been natural to dig into more intra-brother conflict as to the absurdity of hell week.

The entire middle act of the film focuses on one hazing incident after another. The result is a film that largely treads water until it hits the crisis (one of the pledges doesn't make it), the climax (an investigation) and ultimate resolution, which is weak at best. We also get no interaction between the fraternity and the rest of the campus or community, which gives the film an odd isolation. But I get it ... the director/writer/producers wanted to keep the story strictly focused on the fraternity.

That said, superb performances by Jake Picking, who plays Dixon, the frat president, Nick Jonas and Ben Schnetzer (a rising young actor who shows real promise). I've always like Jonas subtle, nuanced performances, where he displays a natural affinity for the screen. He never looks like he's acting.

Schnetzer does an excellent job playing little brother, but trying hard to be his equal.

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 --

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.

This film gets 90-percent of the way there. As a story of the relationship between two brothers, during a stressful time in the life of one, it's poignant and wonderful. To a discerning eye Goat's setting in a fraternity will come across, through most of the film, merely as set dressing for the underlying story, rather than an indictment of fraternity life generally. And at that level it works beautifully. Unfortunately, the last twenty minutes of the film flips into an anti-fraternity rant that, while not exactly coming out of nowhere, could have been better left on the cutting room floor. Nonetheless, Goat is a powerful and emotional film that, in this reviewer's mind, is touching, as opposed to disturbing as some have called it.

The character development in Goat, beyond the two brothers, is minimal but the level of vague ambiguity it creates works perfectly in helping focus attention on their relationship.

Nick Jonas' acting chops were a wonderful surprise. Ben Schnetzer and Gus Halper also deliver unrelentingly powerful performances.

James Franco's sudden, albeit brief, appearance, is a little out-of-place and the presence of his character somewhat unrealistic.

Being in a fraternity myself I could relate to the abuse that's portrayed in the film. Well done but maybe a little loud and manic. Nice cameo by James Franco too. Not something you'd wanna watch twice...