OLL LEWIS: CFZ REVIEW - The Men Who Stare At Goats

In 2004 friend of the CFZ Jon Ronson, aided by John Sergeant, wrote a book called The Men Who Stare at Goats and made a documentary of the same name about a secret campaign by the American military to investigate the possible training of psychic spies and unconventional techniques that could be applied in conflicts during the height of the cold war. Many people in these post-cold-war times are now aware that there was no real danger of actual all-out war between the Americans and their allies, and the USSR, and that it was mostly just posturing to justify the positions of the two superpowers, and also used as a tool by governments to keep their citizens in check and provide convenient hate figures safely outside domestic politics, but a lot of people were drawn into this war of ideals at the time with many living in fear of the day the bombs would drop, and many lives were lost in satellite conflicts.

There was a constant fear among the military establishment of both sides that the other might develop some ultimate weapon without the obvious drawbacks of an atom bomb with which they could hold the other side to ransom, or spying techniques that could not be detected. So when the USSR heard reports that America had been developing psychic spies they started a program of their own to look into the possibility. The original reports had been a hoax but now that the USSR were looking into the prospect seriously the Americans had to follow suit or risk being defenceless in the slim chance there was something in all this. With that the American military started their own research into unconventional warfare techniques, the most leftfield of which was the new age ‘First Earth Battalion,’ which hoped to create a squad of warrior monks capable of resolving conflicts through non, or minimal violence. These warrior monks, sometimes referred to as Jedi, would be capable of changing the enemies' opinions by psychic will, phasing through solid objects, invisibility and remote viewing. Along with this program the US went on to develop psychic weaponry techniques, one such technique being the ability to stop a person's heart by staring at them. This was tried out on goats with very limited success - one goat died but this may have just been pure chance.

The unusual program and its successors, which were put to use in the recent Iraq conflict, form the basis for the comedy film The Men Who Stare At Goats staring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. Unlike the book the film follows a straight narrative told through events in ‘the present’ as McGregor’s naïve journalist character follows Clooney’s character, an ex-psychic warrior who now owns a dance studio, into Iraq on a top secret mission. The story of the psychic spy/warrior monk/Jedi program, headed by Jeff Bridges’s character, with Spacey’s character throwing several spanners into the works, is told as a concurrent storyline using flashbacks. Overall, the film works quite well and this is largely due to the fantastic cast. Not since the classic days of Hollywood has there been a film with so many actors at the top of their game staring in the same film, McGregor plays his role perfectly without a trace of any previous characters he has played (Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Connery would do well to take note) and Clooney’s time spent on Coen brothers’ films has paid off vastly as his portrayal of a confident man who may be either possessed of super powers or completely insane is completely without fault and will have you guessing throughout. Maybe after his portrayal of the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland Johnny Depp should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch this movie 50 times as a lesson in how to portray madness properly without just resorting to a Scottish accent and doing anachronistic dances. Kevin Spacey also impressed as a ‘not very’ psychic spy consumed by jealousy for Clooney’s character’s abilities, a highlight of which was a Shirley-Ghostman-like scene when Spacey channelled his spirit guide to look at a picture in a locked draw, got the answer completely wrong and had a tantrum. For me, though, the star of the film was Bridges. I’m of the opinion it is damn near impossible to have a bad film with Bridges as one of the actors; two Bridges films make my all time top 5, The Big Lebowski and Tron and had the last half hour of this film managed to keep up the momentum of the first hour then The Men Who Stare At Goats really could have joined them.

The last half hour of the film really is where cracks begin to show: with the Bridges's heavy flashback storyline all but finished, the film turns its focus on the present day story in Iraq and most of the fun feels like it has been taken out of the film by this point, leaving only the rather stark realities of modern warfare, torture and the ultimate moral that the media would rather peddle a funny news story than look at the uncomfortable truth behind it. Somehow the pay-off at the end of the film doesn’t seem quite as satisfying as it could have been, but at least the very last scene of the movie will bring a smile to your face and provides a good juxtaposition to the first.

All in all, the first two thirds of the film provided an hour of impressive entertainment but after that, it started to flag and went downhill. That is not to say that the final half hour was bad; it just couldn’t compare to what had gone before and ended up as an anticlimax, but the film is still worth a watch, particularly if you need a good Jeff Bridges performance to keep you going until True Grit and Tron Legacy are released later this year.

7.5/10