THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
MOMENTUM
RELEASED 6 November 2009
George Clooney had three starring movies in the 2009 London Film Festival (‘Up in the Air’, ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, and this), and it’s a sign of his growing confidence as an actor that each performance varies so much. Unlike ‘Up in the Air’, which was clearly a Clooney starrer, in ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ (based on the novel written by UK author Jon Ronson, adapted by Peter Straughan, screenwriter of the dismal ‘How to Lose Friends and Alienate People’) he’s part of a high-calibre ensemble comprising Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, and Ewan McGregor.
Bob Wilton (McGregor) works as a reporter on a US newspaper, and after his marriage disintegrates with his wife running off with his editor, Wilton decides it’s about time he did some serious journalistic work, and flies out to Iraq. While there, he fortuitously meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney), who claims to have worked on a top secret 80’s Army project which involved training soldiers in the art of psychic warfare. The ‘First Earth Battalion’ were formed by Bill Django (Bridges), who gets his men to dance and free their inner selves, basically creating the army’s first hippy unit. Cassady claims members of the unit developed the power to psychically stop an animals’ heart from beating (as well as invisibility, or the power not to be seen as Cassady puts it, which is obviously slightly different). Cassady is on some kind of secret mission, which he allows Wilton to join him on, whereupon they eventually encounter the new leader of the First Earth Battalion, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), whose only psychic power seems to be the power to piss people off.
Ewan McGregor plays the lead role in ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’, which means we have to endure his annoying American accent again. Fortunately, George Clooney relieves the anguish by turning up quite soon, and his wacky, Coen-brothers style paranoid soldier act is a mix of the good and the patchy, a bit like the film really. There’s a funny sight gag involving Cassady looking up through his car windscreen and cloud-bursting (mentally breaking a cloud apart!) while driving in the desert, which sees him crash into the only rock in sight for miles.
Spacey and Bridges are both excellent as always, but both are supporting roles and the film would’ve benefitted from more of their humour. The actors are the movie’s saving grace in fact, relishing the scripts’ golden moments. The story is loose and undefined, although it’s certainly an entertaining subject, and as the introductory titles state, ‘a surprising amount of the following is true.’
The direction by Grant Heslov is pretty unremarkable, and the ‘American Beauty’-style soundtrack score comes with the odd choice of Supergrass’ ‘Alright’ over the opening credits.
There’s a funny running joke in the film involving Cassady’s use of the term ‘Jedi Warrior’, which is what the psychic soldiers call themselves. I believe the ‘force’ is even mentioned. Ewan McGregor’s role in the ‘Star Wars’ films make this a post-modern joke. His character compares his voyage to Iraq as like a boy on a distant planet going to fight the forces of good and evil (like Luke Skywalker of Star Wars), or like a hobbit leaving the Shire heading for Mordor. I wasn’t quite sure why no-one actually questions the phrase ‘Jedi’ in respect of being a famous fictional word, but it’s quite funny regardless.
THREE OUT OF FIVE