In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them.
Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. 'The men who stare at goats' reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror.
With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades, and sees how it is alive today within US Homeland Security and post-war Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur?
Why have 100 de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the US Military associated with the mysterious mass-suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? 'The men who stare at goats' answers these, and many more, questions.
The Men Who Stare at Goats
Maxabout Review
Funny trip through the powers of the mind - and the powers of suggestion. .
Friday, November 06, 2009
Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats - a wild comedy suggests that you laugh heartily at the shaggy "true" story of weird American experiments in brain power and thought control. You couldn't ask for a better cast of actors for this offbeat and frequently hilarious tale. Based on a nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, Heslov's film is told by Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a newspaper reporter who stumbles upon this story while working for a small-town paper.
The Men Who Stare at Goats aims to be a “Catch-22” or “Dr. Strangelove” style spoof of the absurdities of military bureaucracy, but ultimately it’s more of a gentle, loving send-up than the sharp satire it could have been.
While not a perfect film, one thing’s for certain: We can expect a great future for Grant Heslov and George Clooney collaborations. They wrote “Good Night, and Good Luck” together for Clooney to direct, and now The Men Who Stare at Goats brings Clooney back in front of the screen as Heslov helms his first major feature.
It’s praise, but it’s not enthusiastic. It means that the movie was fun, had several good moments, but was ultimately forgettable.
The Men Who Stare at Goats is essentially two stories. The first is Wilton’s
journey learning about the program and attempting not to get sold to Al Qaeda while becoming more of a man. It has its own life – featuring a few twists and turns on the desert roads, and Wilton definitely gets an adventure alongside Cassaday. Most of the time it’s amazing how they manage to stay alive with Cassady convinced he can use his unproven psychic powers to save them.
In fact, The Men Who Stare at Goats belongs to George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. Clooney is at his best when playing a crazy person, and his in that same top form here balancing his paranoia with the knowledge of things that most Americans should have never even known about. It could have been heavy, but Clooney plays it straight and gets a laugh everywhere one needs to be. Bridges pulls double duty, having to show a character during the prime of his life and career as well as near the end of his life and rope.
The Men Who Stare at Goats is as unpredictable and oddly built a comedy as I’ve seen in a while, capable of frequent surprises. Heslov, working from a script by Peter Straughan, finds a smooth story-telling style, despite a screenplay that bounces between the present, flashbacks that are enacted and others that are simply narrated. The fact that there are a couple of different narrators – Bob and Lyn – doesn’t detract from the film’s cohesiveness.
The performances are strong, the story is interesting in a goofy way, but it still manages to be middling and forgettable. The initial concept of the military paying major dollars to “train” men how to kill with their minds is a fantastic one, but it never grows during the movie.
On the technical side, there was something unfinished-feeling about the whole thing. Scenes in the desert were washed out beyond belief so much so that it was unclear whether that footage had been color corrected at all. Plus, they should have spent a bit more to get CGI that was something close to believable. There’s obviously not a lot in it, but the stuff that is looks cheap and fake.
The Men Who Stare at Goats runs out of steam near the end, but that’s a minor quibble. This film manages to keep a straight face, even as it jumps into the realm of the goofy – and the unexplainable – over and over again.
A fun, wacky travelogue of empty desert with strong performances from the entire cast.