The Men Who Stare at Goats

[Beate]

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The ViewLondon Review

Review by Matthew Turner
04/11/2009
Four out of Five stars
Running time: 90 mins

Hugely enjoyable, frequently hilarious comedy-drama with a superb script and terrific performances from Clooney, McGregor and Jeff Bridges.

What's it all about?
Based on Jon Ronson's non-fiction bestseller, The Men Who Stare At Goats stars Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton, a Michigan journalist who's come to Kuwait in the hopes of proving himself to his estranged wife (Rebecca Mader) by finding a war story that will make his name. However, he gets more than he bargained for when he meets Special Forces operator Lynn Cassady (George Clooney), who tells him he's a member of a secret squad of psychic spies, trained in the 1980s by soldier-turned-Jedi-warrior Bob Django (Jeff Bridges).

As Bob accompanies Lynn on a mysterious mission in the hot zone, Lynn reveals more of his story, including the details of their powers (reading minds, psychic visions, killing goats by staring at them) and the eventual disbanding of the unit, through the actions of jealous colleague Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). And when Lynn's secret mission is revealed, Bob finds himself with the story of a lifetime.

The Good
The film opens with the caption 'More of this is true than you would believe' and the film is careful not to show anything too supernatural, so that, like Bob, the audience is always on the side of the disbelieving observer. To that end, the script is extremely good, skilfully weaving together the two strands of the story in unexpected ways, with results that are both thought-provoking and surprisingly moving.

The casting is nigh-on perfect, even managing to provide a couple of clever jokes and references, such as the irony of Ewan McGregor playing a character learning about Jedi superpowers or the fact that Jeff Bridges plays Django as, essentially, an alternate version of The Big Lebowski's Dude. However, the star of the show is undoubtedly Clooney, who delivers one of his best performances as Lynn, effortlessly blending his gift for deadpan comedy with something that's both emotionally engaging and contains just a hint of madness.

The Great
Director Grant Heslov (Clooney's longtime producer) gets the tone exactly right and orchestrates several delightful scenes, particularly all the flashback sequences (Clooney dancing is a definite highlight) and the interaction between Lynn and Bob.

Worth seeing?
The Men Who Stare At Goats is a hugely entertaining, sharply written and superbly acted comedy-drama that's both laugh-out-loud funny and surprisingly moving. Highly recommended.

[superhero]

lol...They normally do a "The Good" and "The Bad"...I notice they haven't written anything for "The Bad".....
Might I suggest the script....hehe.
I haven't actually seen a bad review in london yet for this film; although the reviews in the States were quite mixed.

[superhero]

The soundtrack's brilliant though, I might actually go and b*y the soundtrack. Lots of really nice old songs that I like

[Beate]

lol...They normally do a "The Good" and "The Bad"...I notice they haven't written anything for "The Bad".....

No I think he does the Good and Bad thing for anything up to three stars, after that it's Good and Great.

Just been to see this courtesy of Bevvy's Picturehouse vouchers, the cinema was surprisingly full for an after lunch screening. It's amazing though how many people don't notice they get seats allocated and just sit down anywhere so have to move again when the seat owners come!

The film wasn't quite as good as expected or as good as Up in the Air, but still better than Fantastic Mr Fox so am going to give it a 7.5/10. It was pretty hilarious in places, all that New Age stuff just makes you giggle (and Ewan McGregor being a Jedi, LOL), and the actors are a pretty darn good bunch anyway. Makes you wonder how much of that story really IS true! It's worth a watch for George Clooney sporting long hair and dancing like a lunatic alone, LOL!

[Cortone]

Andrews, allsinging and I (and allsinging's mum and daughter Cara) went to see this yesterday, and it was completely nonsensical, but quite hilarious in places, too. If it had been on TV, I might have drifted to another channel, but on the big screen, it was good.

I loved the "in jokes", the laugh-out-loud silliness, the combination of 'big names' (Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges) spotting people from TV series (like the Unit and 24), the music and the scenery.

I don't think it will go down in history as one of the best films of all time, but it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. :-)

[andrews]

I enjoyed the complete absurdity of this film. I thought the jokes were silly, and some of the scenes had us laughing out loud. It was very entertaining in many different ways. The sript was witty and fast, and the interaction between the main characters was fabulous.

The review which Beate has posted says it all really. It was a very clever film, and extremely well acted. George Clooney and Ewan McGregor were excellent in their roles.

Possibly 8 out of 10 from me. Might revise later.

Thanks again to Cortone for the free ticket. I enjoyed the Picturehouse, York. It has a nice feel to it.

[EthanRunt]

Caught it free with one of the Dorian Gray vouchers, one down one to go, and was disappointed, an amazingly talented cast and a great premise that was offered nowhere to go, in fact a documentary on the subject would have proved a best genre for the film instead of a slapstick silly comedy that the film's tone wasn't sure to go head-on with or to try and make it a real series of events, opting for having it's cake and eating it too, a complete waste of time, and the jokes were far too broad to be accepted as real enough.
Ah, what could have been, I love what could have been infinitely more than what is.
5/10

[AnneJ]

I went to see this last night, I think I might be one of the only people that really didn't like it!! I thought it was dreadful, it was the worse film I’ve seen in ages!!! Even George Clooney couldn’t save it, I thought the story line didn’t play out very well and came over as stupid. I had high hopes for this film after seeing the trailer, 3/10. It would have been 2/10 if George hadn't been in it!

[ciro22]

I'm not sure this films knows what kind of film it actually wants to be and it seems to suffer from that problem along with the fact that there isn't a particularly good narrative for the film to begin with.

Also, I'm finding more and more that any film with Ewan McGregor in it is a sign that the film won't be that great...
(Go on, try and name the last decent film that Ewan McGregor was in! )

All in all I'm actually a little surprised at the good reviews it's been getting here in the U.K!

[penny41]

did not enjoy this at all simple as that
no story
not funny