Review of The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) by Aaron M — 25 Jul 2015

Although its story is at points completely off the wall and hilarious, a cast, that predominantly are fantastic and a script that works reasonably well, The Men Who Stare At Goats, falls short of 1 too many critical moments to make this a memorable classic.

That's not to say its not a good slice of fun, it is and there is no better evidence than the actors involved in the picture that prove this. A down on his luck reporter flies to Kuwait, during a tragic break up with his wife, in order to prove to her that he can be the man she needs him to be, considering the second gulf war is under way.

During his journey he bumps into a man named Lyn, who comes across as quite special, ranting about a new world army and how he possesses Jedi powers. Bob, the reporter, decides to document Lyn's "Mission" and heads out into the arse end of Iraq in order to see through his wacky journey, unbeknownst to him the extent of the madness he will come across.

The source material is hysterical and utterly bonkers, the whole basis of this story itself relies on a post Vietnam task force, led by Jeff Bridges, who get completely high off LSD and practise humane and harmless methods of protection and warfare and do you know what, its fun.

Even the moments that build upon the foundation are fun, yes there are traces of messages dropped throughout about war in general and inhumanity but the film is too busy trying to be silly to really warrant their inclusion, let alone impact.

As mentioned the cast are all along for the ride, George Clooney, Ewan MacGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and Robert Patrick all show up to inject their own form of bat shit comedy, the only thing is that, well aside from Patrick, MacGregor is the only one trying to do something slightly different here, the rest go through the motions, to be fair their characters are paper thin, but its George Clooney doing George Clooney, Jeff Bridges practically reinvents The Dude from Big Lebowski and Kevin Spacey pulls the i'm a prick card out, none of the are awful, but they have zero to work with, leaving us watching a bunch of actors really just having a laugh and mostly its okay.

The script is whitty enough, regardless of actual content and at moments its extremely self aware, it manages to merge the history of the piece with a very fast paced current setting, which at times doesnt feel right, it feels tacked on, unwanted.

Most of the fun from this film comes from the flashbacks, so when we are aimlessly travelling through the desert for, what appears to be, no reason, we as the audience start to lose interest. Its no surprise really, there is only so much silly can hold up before it just becomes a blur and with Men Who Stare At Goats, there is nowhere near enough grounding to really add weight to either side.

It looks great, it sounds great and there are moments of comedy gold throughout, the film also doesnt outstay its welcome, counting in at just 1 hour 30 and no more, adding on top the razor sharp edit, the films turbo jets through its narrative, which considering its content is a life saver, but I kind of wish I had more, more time to breath, more meat to chew on and more weight to everything.

Men Who Stare At Goats, feels like a group of strong actors got together in an afternoon and just improvised a set of funny sketches and walked away from it laughing and moving straight onto the next job, its fun but nothing more.

This is the perfect film to turn your brain off to, not sure thats a compliment considering the films themes, but its true, it will kill time, you will laugh and you wont feel too let down by the end.

However you cant escape the feeling that this film, feels like the Coen Brothers quickly whipped up an idea to work on, before being whisked away to do something more important, leaving whoever to pick up the pieces.