The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Fantastic!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Jedi super soldiers that can kill goats with their minds. That's the real-life premise this film bases itself off of. "It's a far-fetched concept for a feature film, but it might just be crazy enough to work," the writer and producer probably said as they were making this film. Unfortunately for them, and us, it doesn't. What should be a funny premise turns out to be shallow and void of any humor. Just like the real-life program the film showcases, the idea was just too crazy and the execution was too stupid to justify its own existence. The film starts out introducing us to Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a journalist stuck in Ann Arbor doing pointless stories. One day he interviews a man who served in the New Earth Academy and share his story as a psychic soldier. A soldier that can spy using telepathy, see into the future, and kill anybody just with sight. Being fed up with dealing with lowlifes, Bob ventures to Iraq to cover the war (setting is 2002), but comes up short as he isn't allowed to go into the war zones. While waiting to get his big break, he meets a man named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who was the best New Earth Academy trainee in history. Because of the coincidence that he meets another academy member, Bob gets the story behind the academy's leader, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Django was a Vietnam veteran that didn't agree with violence, so he persuaded The Pentagon to fund a new project that would create "Jedi" soldiers that could nonviolently incapacitate an evil regime. From this point on we cut between Bob and Lyn's time in Iraq to Django and Lyn starting the New Earth Academy in the 70s.From the sound of that premise, I would expect this film to embrace its goofiness and unbelievability and use it to create lots of laughs. Well, I was wrong. What should be and was marketed as a comedic film turns out to be a straight lined story that doesn't really feel like anything. It's not funny, it's not dramatic, and it's surprisingly not interesting. It just feels like the hallowed remains of what could have been.Another mistake the film repeatedly makes is that it tries to be something it's not. It unnecessarily tries to tackle many different themes such as friendship, acceptance and living with the past. You would think that touching on those themes would lift this film above the usual lower comedies, but alas you would be wrong again. None of the themes mesh together and make the film feel very disjointed about what messages it is trying to send. What I wanted and expected from this film was crazy antics from great actors, but what I'm given is a failed story that spends way too much time being hokey and sentimental instead of actually being funny. The main actors in this film can be put in two categories: Saving graces or disappointing baggage. Ewan McGregor takes the top spot on the disappointing baggage team. I still haven't figured out if McGregor is a good actor, mostly because his quality vastly changes from film to film. I love the guy, but he's never really consistent. He was excellent in the Trainspotting and Star Wars films, but terrible in Our Kind of Traitor and Mortdecai. I know those bad films came after this one, so you could claim that this film was the beginning of a slump. George Clooney is the biggest saving grace. He has fun with his material and delivers a performance that is off-kilter comedic. Jeff Bridges is also a saving grace as he channels his "Dude" behavior from The Big Lebowski. He's obviously having fun with the role and just kind of goes through each scene carefree.Kevin Spacey balances out the teams and joins McGregor as disappointing baggage. Spacey plays Larry Hooper, an academy member who disagreed with Django's methods and who was jealous of Lyn's natural talent. Spacey tries to play as the abandoned son, but he just doesn't seem interested enough in his role. The Men Who Stare at Goats is a film that takes itself way too seriously and doesn't know what to do. It wants to be a thoughtful comedy with lasting merits. The only thing is, nobody else wanted that. People wanted a goofy comedy with a few good laughs. The film tries too hard where it shouldn't and doesn't try enough where it should, which is why it ends up being boring and forgettable.

There's a scene early on in The Men Who Stare at goats where hapless General Dean Hopgood (Stephen Lang) attempts a platform 9 & 3 quarters style sprint towards a solid wall, in attempt to use 'psychic abilities' he is being taught at a hush-hush military base. He smashes headlong into it, and in the most deadpan drawl, mutters "damn" in all seriousness. This one moment sort of sums up the absurd vibe that thrums throughout the whole film. It's kind of like a Coen Brothers thing; you either get it or you don't. This film isn't quite as hilarious as it's sister, Burn After Reading, but damn if it doesn't try, and come out with some really weird and memorable stuff. It's colorful hogwash that the cast sells with the enthusiasm of a drunken used car salesman, and speaking of cast, wow there are a lot of heavy hitters playing in the sandbox here. George Clooney, in yet another of his patented lovable goof roles, plays Lyn Cassidy, a former US Army nutjob who claims to have been a part of a clandestine program called the New Earth Army, employing paranormal powers in their missions. Bemused journalist Ewan McGregor is shanghai'd into following him on a mad goose chase to find out if any of his stories are true, but mostly just to babysit him, as he's kind of a walking disaster. Ineptitude reaches a breaking point when we meet pseudo hippie Bill Django, played by Jeff Bridges who channels every other oddball role he's done for maximum effect. Bill headed up the program until he got stymied by opposing official Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), a tight ass skeptic with no patience for such silliness. In fact, one must have a huge tolerance for such silliness to sit through this, and a sense of humour just south of normal to appreciate what it has to offer. I have both, and greatly enjoyed it, despite being thoroughly bewildered. Watch for Stephen Root, Glenn Moreshower, Rebecca Mader, Nick Offerman and good old Robert Patrick in a cameo as some sort of vague spy dude. A clown show to rival a high school play, no doubt, and I mean that as a compliment.

Before watching this movie I had to do some research on it and the results were not pretty. A 51% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.3 on here says a lot about a film. I did however read multiple reviews that the confusing and hard to follow story was supported by a noble cast including Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. This seems very much like the kind of movie I would like and I did like it. I thought that it was going to be a lot less funny than it actually was. It was marketed as a comedy yet was very dramatic, and the humor was dark. I know this bothers a lot of people but I like it. Overall I had very low standards and I was pleasantly proved wrong by a quirky, confusing, well casted romp with some more dark moments you don't expect to find in a comedy.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a great movie with a really well developed and extremely unique and unusual storyline and a fantastic cast that all play characters that are different to what you would usually see them in.The best performance has to be George Clooney's, I'm seen him in several comedies but thus is the first time that I genuinely found him to be the funniest character in the movie,Ewan McGregor,Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey also deliver great performances. Fans of both war and comedy movies should definitely check out the Men Who Stare at Goats.A journalist may have found the story of a lifetime when he meets a man who was part of the US Army who claims he has been professionally trained to gain super powers.