Nov 09 2009
Movie Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats
Every now and then a movie project comes along with A-List star power that, despite the completely mind altering plot structure, gets green-lit and, if not box office power, a lot of attention. The Men Who Stare At Goats is an A-List production of story lines/plot themes/goings on that happen only in French films or severely independent fodder. Without names like Clooney, Bridges, McGregor and Spacey, this film would have been one of the most horrifying box office disasters in history. . .if it was even green-lit at all.
This is not a bad thing. It is very rare to go to a film and be surprised. I have to admit that at no point during The Men Who Stare At Goats did I have a clue what was going to come scene after scene. Though the advertising for the film was constant I did know that I wouldn’t be seeing the film advertised. The film’s trailers shoot for a quirky, straight-up, satire. It is no surprise that there are very little laugh out loud moments in the film (and, you guessed it: they’re in the trailer). You could tell the movie doesn’t have what the advertisements wants it to have because if you watch the trailer they are pretty much only showing you five scenes from the film. None of the actual meat and potatoes is displayed.
I judge a good/odd film by the people in the audience. A few people appreciated the dry wit but, in general, the audience I saw the film with was shell-chocked. I could see in many people’s eyes the sentence ‘what the fuck’ flashing above their heads. A lot of people left too! That to me says a lot. The Men Who Stare At Goats is probably a movie I’ll have to see again mainly because I was so busy trying to catch up to the movie’s wack-job premise and set-up that I probably couldn’t appreciate the many layers it actually presented. In the end the film is, indeed, a satire but more along the lines of King of California, where the subject at hand is the mind, not necessarily the politics, of the human race.
In The Men Who Stare At Goats, loser reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) investigates a so-called ‘psychic assassin’ who worked for a now defunct military operation that trained psychic spies and other such paranormal activity. It all goes nowhere until Bob decides to head to Iraq to do some meaningful war reporting (his wife dumped him and he thought it would bring her back to him, amongst other things) and bumps into one of that mysterious military group’s star pupils long past his prime: Lyn Cassady (Clooney). Suffering from myriad diseases and on the edge of insanity, Cassady takes Wilton into Iraq to accomplish a ‘mission’ and, in the process, explains the existence of the Earth Army, led by uber-hippy Bill Django. This Earth Army promoted non-violent warfare and the creation of Jedi Warriors.
This, dear reader, is just the setup. What happens is a fairly deep mythos regarding the Jedi (fit with an ambiguous ending) that, as we are warned at the beginning, ‘is more true then we’d expect’ (or something like that). The only obvious joke here is constantly having former movie/ Star Wars/Jedi Ewan McGregor make Jedi jokes with Clooney. Other then that, the humor comes if you want it to. You don’t necessarily have to work for it but you definitely have to appreciate it. I found myself chuckling at times and decided, in the end, that a second viewing is required. I felt something was missing but, as I explained, it was more my fault then the film makers. You can say worse things about a movie.
The director is George Clooney’s buddy Grant Heslov who was part of the Oscar nominated writing team of Good Night, and Good Luck. Much like Drew Barrymore with Whip It, Heslov benefits from having friends in high places. And while the film is stunt cast, the casting choices excel is not just being the director’s bro but embracing the zany antics of it all. Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey (mostly) and especially Clooney do things I never thought I’d see them do. McGregor plays the straight man with excellence while Robert Patrick, who, oddly enough, starred in an episode about psychic assassins on The X-Files with Grant Heslov, plays the ‘reality is relative’ character that seemingly finds the world goofy and can’t get hit with bullets; a great cameo.
My one acting gripe is Spacey. . .or rather, his agent. . .for playing a stuck-up dickweed. I already said the man was a hack in my review of 21 and though he gets some credibility back in this motion picture, he still has the inability to play anything but a douche bucket. Jeff Bridges is thankfully continuing to play against type these days and McGregor is comfortable in a movie that doesn’t suck for a change. I suppose another gripe is the complete lack of a feminine presence in the film: it certainly is a boy’s only deal. A quirky female performance or a laddie’s perspective on the whole thing might have done the film more of a service.
I will wait for video but I will see the movie again. Only then can I determine if the film is a ambitious failure or an odd masterpiece (or something in between). From a business aspect (and an artistic pride aspect for the film makers) the movie begged me for another viewing and that, I would assume, is the desire of every film: to be seen and seen again. In that regard I can definitely say it succeeded. We’ll see how it holds up in a few months time.
