"Men Who Stare at Goats" is an absurdly funny picture starring George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey.  McGregor is a small-time journalist trying to do something big in his life after a failed marriage. He goes to Kuwait looking for a story and meets Clooney who relays what seem to be extraordinary military operations that began during the Vietnam War and lead up to the year 2003 in Iraq. It all centers on an intelligence operation called the "New Earth Army”, a top-secret division of the military that develops the psychic abilities of soldiers who could then use these abilities to defeat the enemy.  One such ability was being able to stop the enemy's heart from beating by using only focused, mental energy.  In a test environment, Clooney demonstrates this power by staring strangely and intently at a goat who then falls over dead, hence the explanation behind the unusual title of this movie. Clooney also demonstrates the ability to call heads or tails correctly on coin tosses over 250 times the row.  So we have some tangible evidence that Clooney is indeed a modern, psychic Jedi warrior, who is also in fact nuts.

Some of the story is told in flashbacks, starting with Bridges as a new-age hippy and founder of this "New Earth Army" platoon during the Vietnam War, and Spacey as an antagonistic peer who’s envious of Clooney’s talents.  The soldiers train in unorthodox methods; one such method is learning how to dance, because, it is said, if we cannot free our bodies in dance we cannot free up the potential and prowess of the mind.  The unorthodox training of these long-haired 'peaceful warriors' sees its demise when a soldier on LSD goes on a naked shooting rampage and ends up killing himself. Discredited, Bridges is discharged from the military and his whereabouts for years is unknown.

Now in 2003, Clooney’s convinced he’s seen a vision of Bridges that beckons him to come to Iraq and be 'reactivated' as a New Earth Army soldier. Clooney runs into McGregor at an Kuwait hotel and notices McGregor has doodled on a notepad the Masonic figure of a human eye and pyramid (like on the back of a $1 bill). This doodle matches a tattoo on Clooney's chest; Clooney sees it as a clear sign McGregor must play a part in his mission into Iraq. During the mission, many humorous hijinks happen.  Clooney drives into a rock while looking at cloud formations. Stranded, they are kidnapped by Iraqi hoodlums and are poised to being sold for ransom or worse.  Clooney coolly plans the escape and successfully calls upon his unique talents to get McGregor and himself out of capture, although they only end up stranded in the desert soon afterwards.

They awaken from their sun-stroked malaise by a goat wondering nearby, a clanking bell hanging from a rope collar.  Soon afterwards a military helicopter picks them up.  They are brought to hospital facility on a military base in the Iraqi dessert that is the base of operations for a military contractor called PSIC, a paranormal, psychological research firm that is a reinvention of the old New Earth Army program.  Spacey heads up this company and employs Bridges, although the years on the bottle have taken a toll on his abilities.  With their unusual reuniting the story comes full circle.

To describe more would ruin the ending for you, the reader, so I'll stop here. I’ll just tell you it involves more goats, happy goats this time. How do I rate this move? If you like inane, dark, satirical humor about the military, like the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove”, go see it.  I really did enjoy GOATS.   If you expect coherency, skip it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 10:55 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.