Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                    THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: This is the most bizarre look at how mad the
     military can be since CATCH 22.  The United States
     military maintains a core of people who claim to have
     psychic powers.  The trappings are fun: men who can
     run through walls, stare goats to death, and can give
     deadly forehead taps.  But there is not much plot or
     story here to hang them on.  Through the whole film
     one has the feeling that the real story is just about
     to begin, but like the original military project, we
     go nowhere and nothing ever comes of anything.  Rating:
     high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

"More of this is true than you would believe."  This is the
statement that starts the film.  Perhaps it is true, and it might
not take a lot to convince me.  Back when I was working for a major
telecommunications corporation the management invested heavily in
pseudo-scientific pop-psychology exercises and the medical
department touted the value of magnetic bracelets.  The moral is
that people in positions of responsibility are easily fooled by
others and by themselves.

There was a time that both the Americans and the Soviets believed
that there might actually be some truth to psychic claims and both
sides did what in retrospect were absurd experiments in
parapsychology.  Perhaps to some degree it made sense.  There may
be a very low probability that anybody could prove and exploit
mystic powers, but if there was truth to the claims neither side
could afford to allow the other to gain a large psychic advantage.
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is a fiction film based on the
supposedly non-fiction book of the same title by Jon Ronson.  It is
about the bizarre cadre of men who claimed to have psychic powers
who were paid by the government to see if they could find a
strategic use of these mystical powers.

Bob Wilton (played by Ewan McGregor) is a Michigan newspaperman
sent to interview a local man who claims to have the power to kill
hamsters by just staring at them.  He claims to have used this
power in the military and to have known a very gifted psychic at
that time.  That was Lyn Cassady.  Later Wilton coincidentally
meets Cassady (George Clooney, looking like J. Jonah Jameson from
SPIDER-MAN) and travels with him to Iraq to see him use his claimed
powers.  The story follows their current adventures in Iraq and in
flashback tell Cassady's story in the experimental "New Earth
Army."  This elite group, led by the Timothy Leary wannabe Bill
Django (Jeff Bridges) who trains his people to read minds, pass
through solid walls, and to kill with a stare or a tap on the
forehead.  Meanwhile another bizarre psychic, Larry Hooper (Kevin
Spacey), tries to use the situation for his own advancement.

The problem with Peter Straughan's adaptation of the book by Jon
Ronson is that in spite of its shocking view, and its eccentric
characters and situations, the promised story never forms itself.
The viewer (and the main character) just spends some time among
some strange people.  We see a few short segments that tell some of
what happens in the training, but it is all kept at arm's distance.
Rather than moving toward any sort of conclusion about all that has
happened, the film builds to an uninteresting episode of group LSD
in the Iraqi desert and then suddenly the film is over.

This film could have been a very sharp attack on the credulity of
the leaders of the United States military, a sort of latter-day DR.
STRANGELOVE.  But it ends up squishy-soft and undirected.  Where it
should be saying this was a waste of taxpayer money, THE MEN WHO
STARE AT GOATS just says that there are some real wackos in the
world.  But you probably knew that already.  I rate it a high +1 on
the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1234548>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/men_who_stare_at_goats/>

					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2009 Mark R. Leeper