The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

There is an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. It is perhaps no surprise then that filmmakers have often found inspiration in true events in bringing stories to the screen. In what is definitely a case of "stranger than fiction" is The Men Who Stare At Goats, the 2009 film depicting the military's attempt to harness the forces of the paranormal in the name of national security. The results, like the film itself, are quite surprising.Going into the film, it's worth remembering that the credits state that it is "Inspired By The Book The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson". Like many a fact based film before it the film combines characters, events and locations together to create something that can fit more easily into a ninety-three minute package. Keeping that in mind though doesn't mean that the film is a complete work of fiction. On the contrary, many of the events shown in the film have a serious basis in reality. These include the New Earth Army, remote viewing programs (including the specific example used in the film) and indeed the film's very title. While the more "present day" elements are certainly more fictitious than other parts of the film, the film largely portrays real events within its more fictional context.Keeping all that in mind, there's plenty of enjoy about the film as a whole. The performances throughout are solid, playing up the absurd nature of the events being portrayed. Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton (a character apparently inspired by author Jon Ronson" is the viewer's in-way to events and acts as narrator as well as participant. George Clooney is Lyn Cassady with whom McGregor's Wilton spends much of his time with and whom we see through decades of his life in a performance that Clooney plays perfectly on the fine line that constantly leaves Wilton and the viewer alike wondering about his sanity. Much the same can be said of Jeff Bridges as the New Earth Army's founder Bill Django (based on the real-life Jim Channon) and which Bridges is perfectly cast to play. The film's supporting cast is strong as well including Kevin Spacey, Stephen Lang, Robert Patrick, Stephen Root and Waleed Zuaiter who all play up or down the comedy in their scenes to great success.The film, as a production, is solid as well. Peter Straughan's script finds the right balance of parody, comedy and occasional seriousness which sets much of the film's tone and that director Grant Heslov brings to the screen wonderfully. The film covers a large span of time from 1972 Vietnam to 2004 Iraq, a challenge that production designer Sharon Seymour and costumer Louise Frogley do a splendid job of bringing to life. If Straughan and Heslov create a quirky sense of tone, it's Seymour and Frogley who give it the sense of reality that makes it all the more incredible to watch. The result is a quirky, odd but definitely funny hour and a half. With an excellent cast and solid production values, it brings us the tale of the absurd measures that members of the US military went to test and use the paranormal with often surprising results. While not perhaps for all tastes, The Men Who Stare At Goats does prove one thing: that truth is more certainly stranger than fiction.

The only movie I've ever seen for which I have no criticism at all. Every line, every move, is spot on. I'd always thought of Clooney as a film star rather than an actor so it was a surprise. Amazingly well done. I have been tempted to watch it again, but the only thing that stops me is finding something jarring or irritating in it - and I like the fact that there may be one movie out there with none. Apparently I now have to write ten line of text even though I thought a succinct review might be enough. I don't know why I would have to go into plot lines to rehash what everyone has or will see. but it seems to be a requirement to be able to leave my (obviously important!)review.

That movie is quite amusing if you know the facts around it being true...It making a mocky of the U.S. Army's extensive history of actually investigating paranormal methods for combat. When it comes to 'murica they will do anything with the tax payers money for improving their warfare.There was a guy named Nick Rowe, a Special Forces operator who spent 62 months imprisoned in a Vietnamese POW camp. I believe it was him to leaked the details of what he believed to be mind controlling goats which he witnessed there. That lead US into extreme researching of the topic.The 'fainting' goat itself is extremely funny which the US government actually researched on as being actually paranormal.Makes sense seeing a certain type of goat dropping dead by human interaction could be easily confused as something more. However, they where very certain it was paranormal power and therefore wanted it for themselves and apply it to actual people! The US government just believed it was due to people actually staring at the goat for long periods of time at them, focusing paranoid brain activity towards them, which made their heart stop. Really it was just anything that spooked them. Due to an congenital (present from birth) medical condition known as myotonia congenita or Thomsen's disease, certain goat's muscles tense up when the animal is startled and don't immediately relax. Younger ones are more affected and it can even stop their heart for a moment - which can label them as pronouced dead, then revived moments later.

Directed by Grant Heslov, and based on a Jon Ronson book by the same name, "The Men Who Stare At Goats" stars Ewan McGregor as a journalist who travels to Kuwait and then Iraq during the 2003 Iraq War."Goats" is typically read as either a comedy or a piece of investigative journalism. What it also is, though, is a very calculated political statement. It's plot is essentially this: after the Vietnam War, a series of US soldiers lose faith in the United States and begin to see it as a violent, callous nation. They thus promptly become hippies, pacifists and New Age activists. Banding together, they then form the First Earth Battalion, a military unit which fights with "love" and for "peace". The Batalion's attempts to undermine the US military-industrial-complex from within, however, fail completely; the military co-opts and perverts everything with its own overarching ethos.Significantly, the Battalion's soldiers, who are a team of bizarre psychic warriors, are named after the Jedi knights from George Lucas' "Star Wars". Like that franchise's heroes (one of which Ewan McGergor also played), they then find themselves having to make an ethical choice; choose between their "dark" and "light" sides. The film then ends with various Jedi feeling guilty for "killing goats", "animals" which Ronson turns into a symbol for any and all civilians and soldiers killed and tortured by the US war machine. The Jedi thus choose to "set the goats" free, a moral act which goes punished."The Men Who Stare At Goats" stars Jeff Bridges as Bill Django, a character lovingly modelled on Bridges' now-iconic Jeffrey Lebowski. The film's soundtrack ("I See You", "More Than a Feeling", "I had a Dream", "Wishing and Hoping") encapsulates a very 1960s desire for social change, a yearning which the film's climax both satiates and is sceptical of. Some have found Heslov's characters too cartoonish (the film purports to be based on a true story), but his hippies are merely the logical flip side to a military-industrial-complex that is over-funded, wholly absurd and spiritually vacuous. "Goats" was Heslov's feature length debut.8/10 – Worth one viewing.