Men Who Stare at Goats

[wayzim]

Saw this modestly amusing film on friday and, sad to report, it was only a decent movie not the sharp satire I'd been hoping for.

This was supposedly based off from a book about some of the weird shit that our military ( US of A ) was into back in the eighties, with a framing story about a small time reporter trying to prove himself a man by sneaking into Iraq (post 9/11 )
Ewan McGregor is the reporter who, while idle and frustrated in Kuwait, stumbles across a former jedi (psychic warrior ) played by George Clooney, once part of a Cold War Psi unit called the First Earth Battalion. This crack ( or cracked ) elite team was our response to the Soviets research into creating real-life super soldiers.
One of the powers, of course, is killing goats by thinking about it.
In the present, Lyn Cassady ( Clooney ) drags his reluctant recruit (McGregor) on a bizarre covert ops mission which becomes less and less coherant as they meet a parade of even more screwed up characters.
This easily could have been a grand surreal trip, and in parts it succeeds. Jeff Bridges as the commander of First Earth Battalion is sincere in his attempts to introduce some broadly esoteric concepts into the straight laced military machine. Clooney ( from time to time ) plays out his mildly maniacal role with equal earnest against McGregor's straight man hysterics.

The good news is it is a fun ride, but only in parts, not necessarily as a whole.
The other plus is they showed the trailer for The Crazies, but too much of it reminded me of The Happening.
Maybe it's just me, but the song 'Mad World.' will forever be associated with Donnie Darko.

Wayne Z

[Danny]

ive heard nothing but good things about birdges' performance in this, i was just told, if you liked the big lebowski youll dig this so im hopeful.

-as for mad world, the gears of war ad used that poi'fec'ly and thats what it reminds me of.

[AcesandEights]

Hrm...it seemed like it could mildly amusing, but I really was hoping for more.

[bassman]

I'm late to the game, but I finally saw Goats last night. Imo, this is one of the best comedies in recent memory. Everyone's performance is great, there is a wide range of comedic styles, the story isn't too predictable, and the structure helps to play the story out perfectly.

I would highly recommend this film, actually. It's a nice change of pace from recent comedies.



ive heard nothing but good things about birdges' performance in this, i was just told, if you liked the big lebowski youll dig this so im hopeful.


Man...you could just about consider his role as Big Lebowski 2. His two characters are very similar.

[Skippy911sc]

I would not put this in the same category as Lebowski. It was mildly entertaining and I thought that all the main actors did a great job. I love Clooney in these type of roles. It was worth a rental and I found myself chuckling a lot through out the film. Lebowski I had tears running down my face. Thats your difference.

[bassman]

Lebowski I had tears running down my face. Thats your difference.

The character that Bridges plays. Not the whole film - the character is similar to The Dude.

[Trin]

Hmmm... I saw it last night too. :rockbrow:

I expected more from it. I thought it was funny in places but not particularly laugh out loud anywhere. I'd agree it was entertaining and I pretty much liked it, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

I loved Clooney in it. The dry, marginally insane portrayal of his character was great. The rest I was ho-hum about. No one else could do that but Clooney.

The premise was god-awful and full of implausible. And I'm not talking about the whole jedi-army-guy thing. I put that under suspension of disbelief. The problem was that if anyone could actuallly demonstrate those abilities there would be googods of interest in it. They really needed to portray the superpowers as so subjective or intangible that they could not be verified. They missed the mark there.

My wife hated it. She thought it was not funny at all and the characters were awful and the plot had no purpose or structure. I had a hard time countering those arguments, although I still kinda liked the movie. In my opinion it suffered all those problems yet still was entertaining and I thought it had a feel-good ending.

[JDFP]

My wife hated it. She thought it was not funny at all and the characters were awful and the plot had no purpose or structure. I had a hard time countering those arguments, although I still kinda liked the movie. In my opinion it suffered all those problems yet still was entertaining and I thought it had a feel-good ending.

I agree with what your wife said. I was highly disappointed in it. Normally I love everything that Kevin Spacey does but I just thought he was wasted here.

George Clooney is actually in the best comedy I've seen in the last several years ("Burn After Reading") but I thought this was just a pretty flat flick.

j.p.