Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Get the Goat’ on Netflix, a Brazilian Buddy-Cop Comedy That Nods to its 1980s Predecessors

Netflix movie Get the Goat (Cabras de Peste) is a Brazilian buddy cop action-comedy that prominently features an instrumental cover of Glenn Frey’s “The Heat is On,” immediately pointing to its spiritual influence, and no, it’s not The Sorrow and the Pity. Director Vitor Brandt Beverly Hills Cops his bright, cheery aesthetic from the Lethal Weapons and Tango and Cashes of the 1980s; now here’s hoping it’s not just Beverly Hills Slop.

GET THE GOAT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Not much happens in the tiny village of Guaramobim near Sao Paolo, but one notable thing that happens is it annual rapadura festival, represented by its lovely, beloved goat mascot, Celestina. The police here are bored and sleepy, save for Bruceuilis (Edmilson Filho), who’s introduced with a splashy graphic identifying him as a “badass cop,” and yes, his name is pronounced “Bruce Willis,” and he has siblings named Chuquinorris and Vandami (and there are more, but I won’t burn all the jokes here). When Bruce’s overzealous pursuit of a perp committing a minor minor minor infraction results in a large-ish explosion, he’s demoted to goat-babysitting duty. Life is pain.

Meanwhile, in Sao Paolo, some REAL badass cops gear up to take down a big-time drug lord known only as the White Glove. Priscila (Leticia Lima) gives the doghouse-henhouse-outhouse speech, and inexplicably promotes inept schmoe Trindade (Matheus Nachtergaele) from low-stakes paper-pushing to a high-stakes undercover gig. Maybe she wants to see him get killed, but in fact, he gets his highly competent partner gunned down, prompting his demotion and a funeral sequence that strikes one as being of questionable taste. Again: life is pain.

REAL tragedy strikes when Celestina is kidnapped, bringing Bruce to the big city in pursuit. Circumstance finds him palling up with Trindade, and they stumblebum their way into a redemption opportunity when their path and the goat’s path crosses with the White Glove’s operation. Before you know it, Trindade and Bruce are good-cop-bad-copping their way through an interrogation, coaxing the goat to take a shit and pretending to be a gay couple as part of an undercover op. Hilarity ensues, theoretically.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is essentially the Brazilian Hot Fuzz.

Performance Worth Watching: The goat gets all the glamor shots and glory here.

Memorable Dialogue: “You did a great job. Well, not good. More like mediocre. Actually, it was lame.” — Priscila gets the honor of reviewing the movie via its own dialogue

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: There’s not much to Get the Goat — it’s a collection of fatigued jokes delivered by two affable lead actors functioning in a plot whose outcome is never in doubt for a second. It wears its affection for Stakeout, 48 Hrs., Rush Hour and the like on its sleeve, satirizing all the genre cliches at the same time it indulges them. It’s crude and silly and occasionally tacky, aiming for broad appeal but often missing even the broad side of the barn.

There’s something to be said for Filho and Nachtergaele’s performances, which don’t lack effort. They dive face first into slapstick and vulgarity with enough abandon and goodwill to endear us to them. But neither do they transcend the many Jackie Chan and Turner/Hooch tropes like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost did in Hot Fuzz — and that’s primarily a failing of Brandt and co-writer Denis Nielsen’s warmed-over material. It’s a classic case of homage deviating into pastiche.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Get the Goat is by no means a terrible movie, but neither is it a particularly memorable one.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Get the Goat on Netflix