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| The Men Who Stare At Goats (15)
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Dir. Grant Heslov, USA/UK, 2009, 94 mins
Cast: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey
Review by Carol Allen
You might be forgiven for thinking that the delightful idea of an American army unit being formed to develop psychic powers for peaceful purposes is a wildly imaginative fantasy. However we are assured at the opening of this entertaining and original film that more of this story is true than we might think - so maybe it did really happen.
McGregor, whose character also acts as narrator of this tale, plays reporter Bob Wilton, a reporter in the Iraq war in 2003, where he meets the eccentric Lyn Cassady (Clooney), who confirms the story that Wilton already has wind of, that years earlier after the Vietnam war, a secret American army unit, the New Earth Army, was formed, with the purpose of developing soldiers with psychic powers. Cassady was its star psychic. Now the unit's founder, Bill Dhango (Bridges), has gone missing and Wilton decides to join Cassady in finding out what's happened to him.
This film really is something completely different. It's amusingly comic, frequently taking the mickey out of its characters, but in a genial and affectionate way. The story of the New Earth Army is revealed gradually, intriguingly but always clearly in the many flashbacks. One can hardly wait for the next slice. They're glorious. And it has a great cast. McGregor is good as the often bewildered and slightly wimpy journalist. Clooney, who is a much better actor than he's often given credit for, manages the different ages of the characters convincingly. The brutally unflattering haircut of the character as an older man helps to make him look really eccentric and, even though he appears to be slightly mad, he convinces us and Wilton of the truth of his story and engages our sympathy. Bridges with his wicked, lazy grin is terrific as the laid back Vietnam veteran founder of this crazy psychic soldiers for peace unit. His training sessions are hilarious and he captures the character's hippy New Age approach perfectly in both its eccentricity and gentle lovingness. It's a genius piece of casting. He's also rather touching as the older Django, whom Cassady and Wilton discover is being held in captivity by the "villain of the piece", Larry (Spacey), who represents the more traditional approach of the US army as portrayed in movies. He wants to revive the psychic unit and use their powers for war rather than peace, as is demonstrated when he forces Cassady to kill a goat with his mind just by staring at it. It's a role in which Spacey has a ball, particularly in a very funny sequence towards the end, when Django and his band get the whole unit stoned on LSD. Without giving too much away, the film concludes with a satisfying and almost biblical image of Iraqi human and goat prisoners being released into the desert.
I should point out that the title is a bit of a misnomer, in that actually only one man stares at one goat - an animal whose death scene is well up to the acting of the rest of the cast. I'm sure no goats were harmed in the making of this movie.
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