Goat

Dir: Andrew Neel

2016

***

I loath the fraternity film genre and I’m one of the few film fanatics who dislike National Lampoon’s Animal House for influencing the many awful films that have been inspired by it. Goat however, based on the book and memoir by Brad Land is a slightly different film to the rest. In many respects, it is the antidote and the fraternity film to end all fraternity films. The screenplay was written by David Gordon Green, Mike Roberts and Andrew Neel, with Neel directing. The film opens with a brutal scene and doesn’t once back down from its initial message. Brad Land (Ben Schnetzer) goes to a party with his older brother Brett (Nick Jonas) in their hometown. It is a party like many others but this time the brothers have a sexual opportunity with a couple of drunk girls. Brad feels uncomfortable with the situation and leaves the party without his brother, despite his brother’s pleas to stay. On the way home, a couple of guys who say they were at the same party ask for a lift and Brad naively offers them a ride. The strangers convince Brad to drive out of town to a deserted spot where they viciously beat him for no apparent reason. Months later and still reeling from the terrifying assault, Brad starts college determined to get his life back to normal. His brother is already established on campus and with a fraternity that lures Brad in with its promise of protection, popularity, and life-long friendships. Brad is desperate to belong but as he sets out to join the fraternity his brother exhibits reservations, a sentiment that threatens to divide them. As the pledging ritual moves into hell week, a rite that promises to usher these unproven boys into manhood, the stakes violently increase with a series of torturous and humiliating events. The pledges are taken to an off-campus site in the woods, where they are told they either need to drink large quantities of beer, or if they fail they need to sodomize and then kill a goat. They pass the test, and are told the hazing is over. During the crossing ceremony, Brad becomes upset that his brother did not attend and confronts him. Their argument becomes heated and they almost fight each other. Brett tells his brother that he does not belong in the fraternity after seeing how bad the hazing process was. Events culminate when Will, Brad's pledge brother, dies of a heart attack while exercising on the track field and his body was shown to be covered in bruises from hazing. The pledges, particularly Brad, are warned not to reveal anything to the authorities. The university launches an investigation into Phi Sigma Mu and the fraternity is suspended from campus after someone had told the investigators all about the hazing process. The pledge master suspects Brad for leaking information to the university. Brad comes back to his dorm after class to find his goat defecating on the carpet with "Rat Fuck" shaved into its coat. After confronting the brothers at the house, Brad gets accused of speaking to the authorities but Brett steps in and reveals himself as the source of the leaks. Brett and Brad both go to the police station to identify Brad's attackers from 6 months ago. One of them is revealed to have been shot in a gas station robbery, while the other has yet to be identified in a line up. Brad lies and says none of the men are the one who assaulted him. The final scene is of Brad and Brett visiting the field where Brad was beaten. It is brutal and unflinching and every bit as deplorable as it needs to be. There are far too many films that either make light of hazing or that skip merrily around it. The ritual goes back centuries, most notably to The Bullingdon Club in England, the focus of Lone Scherfig’s 2014 film The Riot Club. It needs to stop, not only the act itself but the films that glorify it. Goat is, essentially, the Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom of the genre. Ben Schnetzer is good as Brad Land and displays the right level of unconfidence for his character. The casting of Nick Jonas as his brother has the skeptic in me thinking his involvement is purely a ploy to remove his nice-guy image and make him a more dangerous and therefore more interesting actor but truth be told, he’s not bad. James Franco produced the film under his Rabbit Bandini Productions banner but I’m not sure he should have starred in it. In the film he plays an ex-member and ‘legend’ of the fraternity, a married man with a child who still can’t get the way of life (and worship that came with it) out of his system. He pops by the house to say hi and stays all day and night drinking, forgetting about his family. It is a tragic character and an important one dynamically but unfortunately it just feels like James Franco himself has appeared in the film and it makes the film feel like the wrong kind of Frat movie. It isn’t a pleasant film to watch but then that is the point, and for that I applaud it. In the same breath I can’t say I enjoyed it but I’m really glad it exists and I hope more people see it and reject the glorification of the fraternity and all the horrible stuff associated with it.