Review of Goat, directed by Tyree Dillihay

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I remember very clearly when Goat came out in theaters, but I don’t know why I didn’t want to see it at the time. I think it’s because it looked like something I didn’t want to sit in a theater and watch, so I just kind of ignored its existence. Then one boring Saturday I found myself wanting to watch a movie, so I opened up Netflix.

And there Goat was. I didn’t expect myself to be watching this movie, but here we were. Sometimes the greatest entertainment we have just is what we wanted in the moment, am I right?

Let’s get into the review!

One goat finds himself on his town’s professional roar (basketball) team, much to the despair of others.

In this movie, the characters are all animals living in a world where they have cities, sports arenas, and live normal lives. On his sixth birthday, our protagonist, Will Harris, dreams of becoming a roarball player just like his favorite player: Jett Fillmore, a panther who plays for the hometown team Thorns. Ten years later Will is all grown up and his mother has passed away, but he never forgot his dream of playing ball.

The Thorns are on a losing streak and the owner, Flo (a warthog), decides she has to do whatever she can in order to make this team more financially successful. She has to find a sixth player, and that’s going to be Will. He works at a diner and plays on the side, but first he has to pay rent and stay alive.

When he goes to the court after deliveries one day, he faces off against Mane, the main player for the Lava Coast Magma. He loses miserably, also losing all of his bet money, forcing him to move in with his friends after getting evicted from his apartment. However, someone took a video where they claimed Will broke Mane’s ankles, and it goes viral.

Flo shows up to find Will, then signs him onto the team, angering Jett. Jett essentially makes fun of him at the conference, then meets the rest of the team: Coach Dennis, Archie, Modo, Olivia, and Lenny. Will is never put out onto the field during the following games, but when Jett is banished off the field for a foul, Will is forced to go on during a game.

Much to everyone’s shock, he scores the winning point, giving the team their first win all season. His team, who did not respect him before, look at him in new light—except for Jett, who storms off of a promo video at the thought of acknowledging what’s happening.

Will follows her and then takes her to the diner, where everyone loves Jett. Jett realizes that the people in the city actually still do love her, while also learning about Will’s mother’s ambitions for him to continue playing. Jett promises the diner’s owner that she’ll help bring home the championship trophy, and from that point on the Thorns go on a winning streak.

However, right before the semi-finals, Flo informs Jett that she sold the team without anyone transferring. Will happens to hear this, but Jett tells him he cannot tell anyone. They go into the game and don’t play well, but during the huddle before the last quarter, Will spills the beans and the team is devastated by the news.

Jett ends up single handedly winning the game by ignoring everyone else on the field, and everyone quits because of it. Jett finds Will before the final game and tells him how afraid she is of being forgotten, then they find the team members and bring everyone back for one last game against Magma.

It’s during that last game Mane critically injures Jett, potentially ending her career, but when Archie gets kicked out of the game, Jett comes back onto the field. Jett distracts everyone before passing the ball to Will, who makes the winning shot. They win the championship and Flo is chased off the field.

The team returns to Vineland with the trophy. Modo then reveals he won the ownership papers while playing Uno, and that the team is going to stay in Vineland indefinitely.

Overall Thoughts

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this movie beyond the trailers I had seen in theaters, but I was pleasantly surprised in the end. There’s a lot of heart in this film, even though the writing itself might be something we’ve all seen before in some capacity.

I do kind of wish this movie were a little bit longer, but it’s in a short and sweet spot in the end. Do I think I’ll revisit this one in the near future though? Honestly, I don’t think so, but I thought that it was good to watch and I was very entertained over the course of the hour and a half. The animation is also gorgeous to watch in certain scenes.

I say go watch this one if you’re interested! I thought that it was worth picking up at least once for sure.

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