The Men Who Stare At Goats (Review) (Trailer)

Written by Chris YogerstcloseAuthor: chrisyogerst Name: Chris Yogerst
Email: chris@parcbench.com
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About: Chris graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a BA in film studies and English. He is pursuing a master's degree in 'critical studies in film and television' and is the editor of the Parcbench movies section. He is also a contributor to Breitbart's Big Hollywood and Frontpagemag's Newsreal.See Authors Posts (73) on November 6, 2009

By now we should not be surprised when tinsel town takes shots at our military.  However, when it has a comedic tone we can’t be sure if they are really attacking our armed forces or just using them as a neutral basis for humor.  Based on Hollywood’s recent past (Lions for Lambs, Redacted, Rendition), we can bet they enjoy every shot the can take at the military.  This film, on the other hand, may just be nothing more than a silly story about a misguided group of men.

Based on a book by Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats is the story of the First Earth Battalion handbook which was (apparently) written by a whack job in the military during the 1970’s.  The focus was to teach non-lethal tactics to soldiers which could replace the more destructive methods.  In reality this was looked at as a joke but the film plays it off as a serious (and official) group of elite soldiers.

Jeff Bridges plays the founder of the New Earth Army (Bill Django).  After the war in Vietnam, he decided to try and steer the military in a new direction by incorporating a hippie mentality into modern warfare.  Django is more or less the military reincarnate of “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski.  Django’s top pupil was a confidently stupid Lyn Cassady (George Clooney).  The film also stars Kevin Spacey as Cassady’s nemesis within the New Earth Army, Larry Hooper.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a journalist who, after losing his wife, goes to war-torn Iraq looking for a story.  He runs into Lyn at dinner and begins asking questions, finding the story he was after.  Bob follows Lyn through Iraq in an attempt to learn as much as he can about what are referred to as “Jedi Warriors” (Weak Star Wars reference was unnecessary).

The few members of this new age army force were known to have “superpowers,” although we never really see them accomplish anything.  They worked to do more with their mind than with their physical body.  The film bears its title because the New Earth Army practiced their tactics on goats.  Although they said they had powers, we never see them in action but only in training for the most part.

In a silly attempt to highlight absurdities in our military, this film depicts the most elite group of American soldiers as LSD induced hippies that use “super powers” to prevent war.  The assumption here is that the United States military is a group of war mongers (obvious liberal slant) that are in desperate need of new tactics.

We are even told that this elite “New Earth” group is funded again because the new administration is more open minded than the last one (Surprised they didn’t just say “no more blood for oil”).  Of course, we don’t actually see these elite soldiers accomplish anything besides taking drugs and acting stupid.  The film doesn’t try very hard to defend the soldiers from scrutiny, however.  Rather it manages to leave them as undefended targets.

The problem with this film is that the humor is there but just falls short too often.  George Clooney and Kevin Spacey are not known for roles that give us laugh-out-loud reactions.  Jeff Bridges’ character would have been funnier too had it not been a direct recreation of “The Dude.”  While they are all great actors, their collaboration here is only mediocre.

For a comedy, this film really never got off the ground.  It was funny at times and its tone was consistent throughout.  However, the problem is that with all of the big names in this film it should have been able to deliver.

After all, how exiting could it possibly be to watch men staring at goats?

Film Grade: C