Movie Review of The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

It's been a long time since I've laughed like that at a movie scene, but this one made me howl! 

The Men Who Stare at Goats is fundamentally a story about heart-break, betrayal, torture and war, so there shouldn't be anything funny about it at all.  But the sheer juxtaposition of the violence and the New Age themes worked. 

It had to be played for laughs, because there was no other way of comprehending it.

The movie is billed as a comedy, as well as a drama, and the most bizarre facts of all are actually true.  There really was a battalion of US Special Forces, based at Fort Bragg, who explored esoteric ways of gaining a military advantage. It was populated by soldiers with demonstrable psychic ability. They did train to use this in combat.

What the film does is take that reality and create a fictitious story about it.  Like it needed that!

For the geeks amongst us, there were real moments of hilarity which had nothing to with the actual story in hand.  The psychic soldiers called themselves Jedis.  Ewan McGregor played the reporter finding out about them.  I giggled so much hearing him ask, "What's a Jedi?"

If you don't know, Ewan, then the Rebel Alliance is truly sunk.

Yes, the movie is funny; becoming even more so the longer that you reflect on the fact that the basic premise is true.  But once you're past the laughs, there's a depth to it too.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is quite sad and more than a little disturbing, because of what these soldiers were trying to achieve.  It wasn't reaching for inner peace and participation in the Summer of Love.  It was to win wars.

If you'd missed that in the subtly of the earlier scenes, then the ending will leave you in no doubt. 

Beyond the comedy, I found this to be quite a profound story.  People's hearts were broken; and their lives were shattered.  Not so hilarious after all.  Jon Ronson, who wrote the true story upon which this movie is based, called it 'funny stories about unfunny things', which just about sums it up.

But that, some would argue, is the job of dark comedy.  It makes you laugh because it's made you think.  Ultimately, the latter is the point.

The Bechdel Test seeks to evaluate the representation of females in movies.  The bar is set extremely low, so there's no reason that any film should fail.

There has to be more than one named female character.  They have to have a conversion with each other.  It cannot be about one of the male characters.

In The Men Who Stare at Goats, there were plenty of women amongst the extras.  But I only recall one name.  Alice Wilton was mostly seen flirting like crazy in the background of a handful of scenes at most.  The rest of the criteria just failed outright.  She didn't even speak with an extra.