Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats
Filed under: New Releases, Theatrical Reviews, George Clooney
We're told at the beginning of The Men Who Stare at Goats that "more of this is true than you would believe." But the story of the U.S. Army's attempts to harness psychic powers to create super-soldiers is so bizarre it almost HAS to be true, in accordance with the "how could anyone make this up?" principle. In fact, I believe more of this admittedly fictionalized story than I do of The Fourth Kind, which claims to be 100 percent true. Surely there's a lesson in there.
Based on Jon Ronson's nonfiction book, The Men Who Stare at Goats stars Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton, a journalist covering the Iraq War in 2003. Bob meets a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a private contractor with an unusual past: He claims to have worked for the government as a psychic spy. Bob once met a man, back home in Michigan (played by Stephen Root), who made the same claims, and who named Lyn Cassady as one of his colleagues.
You can see why the military would be interested in psychic spying. Surveillance is a lot less dangerous when you can do it entirely with your mind, rather than having to actually sneak up and eavesdrop on people. And if we could harness things like telekinesis, well, forget about it! We'd beat the Russkies for sure!
Through flashbacks, we learn that in the 1980s, Lyn was mentored by one Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), a Vietnam-veteran-turned-New-Age-hippie who convinced the Army to let him turn soldiers into "warrior monks" through meditation, mind-reading, and so forth. The ultimate goal of this was to be able to kill something with nothing but the power of your mind, hence the goat-staring-at mentioned in the title. Of course, even if you could use the Think System to slay a goat, that doesn't necessarily mean it would work on a person. Still, it's a start.
Django's students also included Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), a prickly type who isn't as psychic as he thinks he is, and who's jealous at how much more talent Lyn seems to have for it than he does. All of this stuff went on during the Cold War -- the film has a bit of fun mocking the military paranoia of the day -- but the project never quite died out, and Hooper reappears during the Iraq era to test new applications of it.
Clooney is his usual self, charismatically goofy; Bridges is perfectly cast as a military hippie; and Spacey does that prim, uptight snark that he does so well. McGregor, on the other hand, is likable as always, and game for whatever insanity the movie wants to put him through, but he doesn't make much of an impression amid the funnier, more interesting characters who surround him. Every comedy needs a straight man, sure, but he needn't be forgettable.
Directed nimbly by Clooney's producing partner Grant Heslov, and written by Peter Straughan (How to Lose Friends & Alienate People), Goats is mildly satirical, and it occasionally endeavors to ask some thoughtful questions about warfare. But mostly it just wants to have a good time. It achieves that well enough, with a quick pace and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, though you might wish it had tried to do something a little more substantial. Then again, it is a movie about men trying to kill goats with their minds. Maybe this is as "substantial" as such a film could be.
(Note: No goats were stared at in the making of this film.)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-07-2009 @ 11:09AM
Todd Laurence said...
Background on "psychic spies."
On Nov. 28th 1995., Ted Koppel, host of ABC's "Nightline" broke the story of a secret group operating within the intelligence agencies, i.e., DoD, DIA, CIA, Army Intelligence Command, etc.
The program was called, "remote viewing" - the training of agents in psi techniques,
which included clairvoyance, (seeing at a distance) and other aspects of
psi phenomena.
By 1993, the unit had passed through the hands of a number of administrators who, either for ego or just sheer ignorance, turned it into a psychic circus. They brought in tarot card readers and channelers to work with only one partially trained remote viewer who was left.
It's estimated that the total cost of this operation was 20 million dollars over a span of 20 plus years.
From 1981 to 1984., Maj.Gen Albert N. Stubblebine, Commanding General
of Army Intelligence, headed the research into psi phenomena. (Star Gate).
A reporter asked General Stubblebine about the "Martian Machinery" - he
replied: "It's moving, the machinery is moving, so I don't know, if its from a leftover civilization - its got a long-live battery, its better than any of the dolls we put out on Christmas, I tell you, OK?"
When asked for more details, he added: "Yeah, its a structure, that's what I say, there are structures on the surface, (Mars) and incidentally I don't want to take thunder away from anyone tomorrow, because you are going to get a chit-chat about that tomorrow and I don't want to trail on somebody else's toes, all I that I am saying is that there are structures on top, there are structures underneath, there are machines on top."
As Nostradamus said: "Beware of Mars."
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11-10-2009 @ 11:28PM
Reshu said...
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11-21-2009 @ 6:12PM
sandy owens said...
There were only a few things about this movie that made me believe that it was based on true facts. One is the fact that I did hear about the government putting people in a room and playing I LOVE YOU "BARNEY" music. Years ago. And the other would be I think that the government financed the making of this movie to take our hard earned money. Because although we love George we wanted to leave 1/4 of the way through the movie. Tickets, Popcorn, sodas $60.00. That is a days pay...........We felt like the goats and wanted to die.l
11-07-2009 @ 1:12PM
Jonathan said...
"You can see why the military would be interested in psychic spying. Surveillance is a lot less dangerous when you can do it entirely with your mind, rather than having to actually sneak up and eavesdrop on people. And if we could harness things like telekinesis, well, forget about it! We'd beat the Russkies for sure!"
Was this written by an 11 year old?
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11-07-2009 @ 2:34PM
Liz said...
The worst and most offensive movie I have seen in a long time. I think George Clooney and Kevin Spacey should refund the 14 bucks I spent on this movie. Knowing someone who died in a roadside bomb in Iraq, there is NOTHING funny about that, it was actually very upsetting to watch. There is NOTHING funny about being a POW. This movie is offensive to every U.S. soldier and veteran. The movie makers owe them an apology.
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11-07-2009 @ 3:37PM
Terry said...
Or maybe you should have been more informed about the type of movie you were going to go see instead of being angry after the fact. It's really not rocket science.
11-14-2009 @ 12:50PM
Kennethevans13@mac.com said...
Without a doubt the worst movie I have ever seen. Wasted 2 hours of my life/time for this!!! A movie should be entertaining than this!!!
11-08-2009 @ 10:33PM
Robert said...
I preferred the trailer to the movie.Better editing and it depicts the only scenes worth seeing.
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11-15-2009 @ 12:47PM
Lynne said...
In complete agreement, the reality, or lack thereof, is sort of a moot point, This movie is BORING to the 10th power. I almost fell asleep, not once but twice.
11-07-2009 @ 10:16PM
paul said...
it was an ok movie. the movie had a meandering, uncertain ending. it's a matinee, second run or rental.
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11-07-2009 @ 11:35PM
Jon said...
But what if someone more serious minded realized there was more to the mental aspect than just use for military purposes? You might want to evaluate this site: http://tinyurl.com/ykb847y
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11-08-2009 @ 4:19AM
Phil Parmet said...
This writer? Writer is a rather generous word to describe this hack who can barely cobble together a literate sentence, let alone a coherent thought. Be sure to go see what he doesn't approve of and run fast as possible from anything he recommends
Reply
11-09-2009 @ 2:50PM
Chas said...
An hour and 50 minutes of my life I wish I had back. Movies are supposed to be entertaining and this was anything but. With such an all star cast I expected so much more. And YES I get what the movie was about. Still, it was just a waste of time.
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11-18-2009 @ 7:33PM
Suz said...
I saw this movie last night and enjoyed it a lot. My husband and I both thought it was funny, and, judging from the laughter in the theater, so did everyone else. It's so incredibly deadpan! I loved it.
I'd watch it again.
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11-22-2009 @ 4:25PM
john said...
I was on a first date with a woman and she wanted to see a comedy. I told her that my teenage kids saw it and said it was the worst movie that they had ever seen. We went anyway. $17.50 for two tickets.
We were the ONLY people in the theater and we spent the whole time talking and having a great time, but only because we were the only ones in the theather. We began to joke that we should have gone to the drive-in (it was 20 degrees out!) because the blank screen would be more interesting than what we were watching.
This has to be the WORST movie ever made. Interesting to note that in all of the positive reviews that I have seen about this movie, the writer had some chip on their shoulder about the military or they seem to have some conspiracy nut angle.
Don't waste your money!
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