When I was four or five years old, my uncle showed me a trick, (one that seems to be a requisite for any uncle to be considered a fun uncle), where he placed his left hand out, palm facing him, and used his other hand to “detach” his left thumb. Impossible, I thought. But to my young, naive self, the impossible was possible. Because my brain hadn't yet been introduced to basic logic, my mind had been blown. This could also be said about the characters in The Men Who Stare at Goats.
The movie follows Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a young journalist with a freshly broken heart. He wishes to travel to Iraq to cover meatier subjects like the war, but doesn't quite have the resources, and so, is bound to the tamer outer-lying countries. After bumping into an American named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a man whose name had come up in an interview back in the States, Bob is roped into a story about a top-secret wing of the U.S. Government that, in the last few decades, had been training soldiers to develop superpowers, like walking through walls, mind control, and killing goats by thought. Lyn was their supernatural golden boy, and for much of the film, we see Lyn and Bob travel through the desert, getting into all sorts of trouble. The movie is weaved with frequent flashbacks to the origin of this top secret group of psychic soldiers, who dub themselves the New Earth Army, and base their beliefs and teachings heavily on the Jedi.
Yes, the Jedi. It's probably a good thing that the filmmakers included the line of text in the beginning: “More of this is true than you would believe,” rather than just saying “Based on a true story.” The story is not easily taken seriously. For a movie that touts how impossibly true it is, it can really only be enjoyed if taken with copious grains of salt, which is more salt than I had lying around at the time I watched it.
But it's hard to take seriously not because of all the seemingly supernatural events that take place; at one point, Lyn is driving through the desert in his beat up car, and stares forcefully up into the sky. “Cloud bursting” he describes it. What is “cloud bursting”? We find out what he means when seconds after, the cloud he was staring at quickly and unnaturally dissipates into nothing. The movie doesn't directly imply he manipulated the cloud; it might just have been by chance. But if we don't believe that he burst the cloud, what are we watching? A movie about a bunch of crazy people dedicating their lives to a crazier cause. Lyn, Bob, and the other men who stare at goats, are so gullible and foolish that it's difficult to connect with any of them.
As mentioned, the movie is half flashbacks. The audience gets to witness the formation and golden days of the New Earth Army. Because there is actual, real-life proof that the U.S. Government was training psychic soldiers, the story takes on a quasi-historic feel, and takes a turn for the interesting. If the Discovery Channel made a documentary dramatizing the creation of the New Earth Army starring Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, you bet I'd watch. A silly story of George Clooney and Ewan McGregor traipsing through the Iraq desert for ridiculous (and mostly unknown) purposes sounds like good fun, but doesn't hold enough water to be an engaging narrative.
The movie is goofy. There's not a whole lot of story to most of it, but what story is there, that of the U.S. Government's weird, new age attempt at training soldiers, is highly watchable. Unfortunately, that leaves half the movie a strange misuse of good scenery and great actors.
DVD Bonus Features
There are two featurettes, one on the making of the movie, and one more about the history of the story. Both are well made, though could have been longer. The latter is especially interesting; it shed quite a bit of light on some of the historical accuracies. Also shedding light on matters are the audio commentaries, one by the director and one by the book's author, which was particularly interesting. There is the theatrical trailer, and four “character bios,” which are just trailers that feature one character or another. So, five very similar trailers. And some deleted scenes that can be missed.
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is on sale March 23, 2010 and is rated R. Comedy. Directed by Grant Heslov. Written by Peter Straughan. Starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey.
