The Men who stare a goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats - ****

Review: Everyone wants something to be passionate about, everybody wants something to believe in so much that they can dedicate their lives to it and feel fulfilled. So many people go through lives with an empty feeling and just accept the status quo that is admirable to see someone who is passionate enough to dive completely into something with their whole being, no matter how crazy or insane it may seem. That's what this movie is about, it is about people who are tired of going through life feeling like there is nothing good out there to fight for and finding something they can dedicate themselves too and feel good about doing. Oh yeah, and it's hilarious.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is about a reporter who is looking for more in his life, although he may find he gets more than he's bargained for. After his wife leaves him Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) decides to shake up his life and head to Iraq to do some solid war reporting so he can prove to his wife that his life is not nothing. He wants to prove this so much, in fact, that he calls his wife from a resort outside the Iraqi border to talk about all the "things he has seen," when in reality he he hasn't even gotten into the country yet.

Looking for ways to get into the country Bob comes into contact with Lyn (George Clooney), who is prepared to blow Bob's mind with a crazy story about the military, which just might be Bob's ticket into the country and into some action so he can find something to report about. After some coaxing Lyn finally tells Bob about his past in the military...that he was a super soldier with super powers trained as part of the Jedi Division. Lyn and others were trained to be able to fight and keep the peace using psychological mind tricks. They were taught how to refine their techniques but most of their abilities were innate. The entire division was made up of people that all had one unique skill or another but none of which seemed real conducive to being a soldier. This did not matter and the division was allowed to continue it's research and tactics for years.
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It is in the flashbacks that Lyn explains where his training came from and how he is to be the person he is today. Slowly along the way we begin to see pieces of Lyn's past slowly fade and poke holes into Lyn's belief system. While trying to cook some meet through a solar power grill from his Jedi division, Lyn refers to it as a "piece of shit" when it doesn't work. Lyn has been convinced of his and other's psychic abilities for years but as the years have wore on and he has seen more of how the world works outside of his division, his beliefs in his former teachings and all the abilities slowly erodes.

It is for this reason that Lyn takes Bob along with him on his mission. Lyn came across a a doodle of Bob's that matched the symbol of the "Jedi" and all the old feelings of passion and confidence in his beliefs came rushing back. Finally, there was something to believe in again. This is why Bob came with him and why Bob thinks there will be quite a story to tell. Bob saw the passion in Lyn admired it, and was drawn to Lyn and his story because of that passion. Maybe through Lyn's passionate telling of the story some of that would rub off on Bob and he would be able to find something to be passionate about, whether it's Lyn's story or being inspired by Lyn's story.

Ultimately, these people found something we all want - something to believe in. Whether it's religion, politics, nationalism, books, movies, whatever, people have always been constantly searching for something they can believe in that they can be passionate about. The Men who Stare at Goats were a group of men that were happy because they found that something in their lives, even though it ultimately got taken away from them. They continued to believe because it was all they had that made them feel alive and that is all they or anyone really wants when it all comes down to it.

While my review has remained somewhat on the serious side I assure, this movie has a lot of laugh out loud funny moments and is extremely enjoyable. The movie has a little bit of a softer side to it as well. I really enjoyed this movie and if you appreciate dry humor this movie will be for you. Definitely worth your time.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats - Directed by Grant Heslov, starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, and Jeff Bridges - Rated R

Some really funny and absurd comedy...with goats.



Goats are funny. At least, I think they are, which is why I read the book that The Men Who Stare at Goats is based on. I found it very interesting that the military adopted a "psychic spy" program that included an attempt to kill a goat by staring at it. (For the record, one former spy claims to have "dropped" a goat, but did not kill it.) The book is obviously meant to be a bit comedic, but it does delve into darker issues like the Abu Ghraib debacle and methods used at Gitmo. The film decides to lay off those issues and go for laughs throughout and I think it works out for the better.

The film starts with General Hopgood (Stephen Lang) attempting to run through his office wall. After he smacks into it face first and falls to the ground, you know you're in for a goofy movie. The actual story starts off with journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) interviewing a former psychic spy who claims to have killed his hamster by staring at it. Bob sees the interview as a joke and doesn't think much of the psychic spy stuff. But when his wife leaves him, he decides it's time to go and do some real reporting...in Iraq.

This is where the movie lifts off, because Bob soon meets Lyn Cassady (the hilarious George Clooney) and Lyn takes him into Iraq to tag along on a psychic spy mission. That's really all the plot you need to know about, because the majority of the film is played out in skit comedy form. The movie uses multiple flashbacks (and even flashbacks within flashbacks) to tell the story of the golden days of psychic spying (the late '70s into the '80s).

It all starts with Bill Django (a terrifically goofy Jeff Bridges) when he falls out of a helicopter in Vietnam. He has a vision on the battlefield (after being shot) and gets the army to fund a journey into peaceful warfare. In other words, Django goes on a hippie trip for a few years. When he comes back, he lays out the guidelines to create warrior monks. The plan is basically to disarm the enemy with kindness. This doesn't go over very well, but when the army discovers the part of the plan that includes "remote viewing" they get interested. "Remote viewing" consists of a psychic soldier staring at a picture of a missing person (or a foreign target) and spying on them from the comfort of an army base.





The snippets shown during Django's warrior monk training make for the funniest moments of the film, like when he gets Lyn to loosen up and dance with all the other recruits. I can't help but laugh when I see a group of soldiers dancing around to hippie music in full uniform, especially when one of those soldiers is a shaggy haired mustachioed George Clooney. Clooney's earnest performance carries the film. He truly seems to believe all the craziness. I think that your enjoyment of the film hinges on what you think of Clooney. Me, I just start laughing when I see him with that moustache, so it completely worked for me. His deadpan performance works perfectly with the light-hearted mood of the film.

It's not all about Clooney, though. Bridges gives his funniest performance since The Big Lebowski. Kevin Spacey does a good job as a slightly menacing psychic spy rival. And Ewan McGregor creates a likable, though doubting, guide for the audience. I was a little worried about McGregor after hearing his voiceover in the previews. I'm just not a fan of his American accent, but it didn't bother me too often. What bothers me is that the author of the book is British, and McGregor is British, so why did they change the character into an American? Aside from that, though, it's great for the Star Wars alum to be in the movie just so he can react to Lyn's claims of being a "Jedi." It's amusing to hear Obi-Wan Kenobi ask what a Jedi is.

The Men Who Stare at Goats isn't a perfect comedy by any means, though. The reliance on flashback storytelling leads to an overall weak narrative. I thought that the film became a bit too ridiculous in the end as well. But I'm quick to forgive a film with a premise that involves killing goats by staring at them. How could it not end being ridiculous? I'm also quick to forgive its faults because those flashbacks it depends on are quite often hilarious.

While watching the film, I kept hoping for more of the supposedly true aspects of the book to show up, but I realized later that it was not the film's intention to be a word for word adaptation. It's supposed to be entertaining. And it succeeds on that front. So if you want more of a history lesson, check out the book (it is a quick, interesting read, by the way). If you want a lighter, more comedic side to the gray area of military experiments, watch the film, you should at least come out of the theater with a smile on your face.

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Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

The Men Who Stare at Goats: The Freaky Side of the Glorious NWO's Conquest of the Gap Nations

The New Earth Jedis: One of the Bizarre Realities Surrounding the War in Iraq


George Cloonie plays one of his extraordinary roles as one of the "men who stare at goats." At the risk of planting a spoiler here: the reason he used to stare at goats was to kill them with the power of his mind.

Pure lunacy? Indeed. But thus is the reality of the New World Order's weirder-than-fiction secret military programs, based on "Star Wars" and the mind-opening capacities of LSD and Coca Cola.

If "The Green Zone" portrayed the serious side of the lunacy that shall go down in one of the saddest chapters of world history as "The Iraq War," (not to be confused with its predecessor in the 80s, "Project Desert Storm,") then "The Men Who Stare at Goats" does the subject justice in covering the truly ridiculous side of it.

Two years before the war started, I happened to frequent the website of the Council on Foreign Relations, where some high ranking Navy dude went on and on about why they had to invade Iraq (And that was way before they ever cooked up the shady pretext of "Weapons of Mass Destruction"): it was simply necessary to bring in the "gap nations" (such as Iraq) into our wonderful New World Order where no nation on earth must be deprived of the presence of Mac Donald's in every major city, the consumption of Coke and Oprah... It's simply what America owes to the world (and its own economy in order to keep its corpse from falling apart).

The logic behind it all is as valid as flying a helicopter on acid, which is basically the message of the movie. But who cares, as long as everyone's got McDonalds and a Satellite dish to watch happiness made in the USA?

As the movie tells you right in the beginning, there is more truth to its ridiculous plot than you'd have the courage to believe. Reality, my friends, is more bizarre than anything those guys in Hollywood could ever cook up. Ever.

Recommendations: The Matrix , Fratello sole, sorella luna , The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John

There IS no spoon!

Last updated: 2010-04-24 18:35:08 by McDozer

The Men Who Stare at Goats — 9

As much as I like to go see movies in theatres, I have hardly gone in the last few months because of monetary issues. I was fortunate enough to have a friend good enough that he was willing to pay my way into this one. And my god am I glad I went.
First things first, the trailer made a Star Wars reference, which had me ecstatic, not to mention the fact that this reference was aimed directly at the man who played obi-wan Kenobi in the first 3 episodes, Ewen McGregor. I was kind of expecting the Star Wars references to be just that scene alone, but my god I lost track of how many times they said Jedi in this movie it wasn’t even funny. I think they actually said Jedi more times in this movie then they did in the entire Star Wars saga. And you know what? It fit.

Now the movie itself had a rather slow start, but that was mainly because the movie was giving you all the background information that you needed to take this movie as either serious, or as a joke. It’s still hard to say which. Mainly because at the beginning of the movie, it said that this was based on a True Story, and you don’t want to know how much of it is actually true. I still wonder how much of it is.

I took the movie as a joke and, my god, it is incredibly rare that a movie constantly makes fun of itself and it is actually a good thing. After about the half-way mark in the movie I was laughing so hard it actually hurt at several parts of the movie to laugh.

Now this movie is also filled with a star studded cast: Ewen McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey. All of these guys play really well together and give the illusion that this branch of the military actually existed at one point.
All in all, if you want a laugh, are ex or current military, or just like seeing crazy shit happen, this movie is for you.

Base Score = 8
+1 for massive Star Wars references
-1 for slow intro
+1 for awesome statement at the beginning
=9/10

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Last updated: 2010-01-12 02:05:29 by Tolll

The Men who stare at Goats

The Silence of the Goats or Wherever you go, there you are
You may be aware that there is such a thing as psychological warfare. You know, like when you secretly alter your significant other’s pants to make him think he is shrinking. Or you listen to your favorite song over and over to annoy the other and possibly get a point across. The CIA version of this Lloyd Dobler move is torture. An example is the infamous “Official 1989 Music Torture Song List for Noriega” that contained such eclectic songs as “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon, “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins and “All Over But The Crying” Georgia Satellites. This is completely different, this is a movie about paranormal warfare.
“The Men who stare at goats” is based on the book by Jon Ronson, a non-fiction account how the American government is harnessing paranormal abilities as an application for warfare. Yes, this is so f***ed up, it is probably absolutely true.
Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a reporter who was recently dumped by his wife. His rage leads him to some self-destructive behavior that in turn leads him on a mission to find himself. On his path he stumbles upon the story of a lifetime. Bob comes across Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who tells him he is a Jedi warrior with special powers on a secret mission on his way to Iraq. Cassady is part of the “First Earth Battalion” lead by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), a top-secret New Age experimental military unit of psychic soldiers that experiments with a smorgasboard of such fine fighting techniques as sparkly eyes technique, telepathy, reading thoughts, remote viewing, passing through walls and killing goats by staring at them (hence the title). They fight with their minds and make peace, not war. But with great power comes great responsibility and soon the whole Zen of the thing is thwarted by the evil that is Kevin Spacey as Larry Hooper.
For me the movie makes an interesting point how self-evolvement and war can only hold hands but never get hot and heavy. Any technique that will make you look for inner awareness must make you despair with the world of war. Or the world in general. And it is only natural that the result of such a liaison between love and hate must be comedic. Personally, I find this whole topic perversely fascinating. One of my long-term goals is levitation.
Kevin Spacey is genius as always, as is a slightly battered George Clooney and an enlightened Jeff Bridges. And since Moulin Rouge I don’t need an excuse to look at Ewan McGregor.
Much like Bob the reporter, there may be too many short-circuited connections for this to work for you. I can see how this movie did not go over too well with the recently New Age obsessed and waterboarded US. But I can tell you that the Germans I saw it with found it hilarious.

No goats, no glory.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Looked like it was a lot of fun for the crew, but I wish it was as fun for me.

Journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) latches onto an unbelievable story in Iraq when he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a man of mysterious origins who reveals he was a “warrior monk” trained by the U.S. Army to develop psychic powers. Jeff Bridges co-stars as Lyn’s mentor, the man who dreamed up the top-secret operation.

The film starts of saying, “trust us, much more of this story is true than you would believe” which is odd as we believe very little of it, actually we believe none of it, full stop. Which then the film then tries and gets you to buy in to the story, and whether you believe in it or not, you admire it, and you really enjoy it. And that’s where I think the film does its best at. It contains a lot of original and fun ideas at how these soldiers are trained.

The problem with the film is that it dives too much into dark humor and satire, that is pretty hit-and-completely miss. When it comes to making a joke on the war at hand now, this doesn’t bring out the best statement. I think some of the jokes were funny, but others were just completely confusing, cause I didn’t know whether or not if it was a joke, or the story itself was actually serious.

Most of the anguish in this film comes from its all over the place tone. I think audiences, including myself won’t know what to take as funny, because the trailers had it all out to be a knee-slapping fun fest of laughter, but when you get to the film, all you see is a bunch of jokes focused on McGregor and Star Wars jokes, because get it, he was in the film. Oh the laughter. It doesn’t get compelling at all, and once its over your not totally taken away by the story itself. And it almost feels like the film was afraid to get edgy at all, and why, I don’t know. It had the R rating and if it went over that edge, the film probably would have been a funnier film.

However, if there was one thing to praise the most in this film it would have to be its hilarious cast. McGregor can’t get the right accent as an American, but he does play the lead with enough insight into his own character, to actually have us care for him, and like him a lot more than the beginning had it out to be. Clooney is simply hilarious as the quirky Lyn, and although he still feels like George Clooney, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t still entertaining. Kevin Spacey is given a lesser role, and does OK with the material he’s given it’s just I wished there was more for him to show. off. Bridges is basically playing The Dude in uniform, and well it works almost every time.

Consensus: A future cult classic, The Men Who Stare at Goats could have been better given the right tone, touch, and writing, but still has enough funny moments, with enough good performance to satisfy, though it still disappoints.

5/10=Rental!!!

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