The Men Who Stare at Goats (film)

The Men Who Stare at Goats
Directed by	Grant Heslov
Written by	Screenplay: Peter Straughan Book: Jon Ronson
Produced by	Paul Lister George Clooney Grant Heslov
Starring	George Clooney Jeff Bridges Ewan McGregor Kevin Spacey
Cinematography	Robert Elswit
Edited by	Tatiana S. Riegel
Music by	Rolfe Kent
Production companies	BBC Films Smokehouse Westgate Film Services Winchester Capital Partners
Distributed by	Overture Films Momentum Pictures
Release dates	September 11, 2009 (2009-09-11) (TIFF) November 6, 2009
Running time	94 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$24 million
Box office	$67,348,218

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a 2009 comedy war film directed by Grant Heslov and written by Peter Straughan and released in theaters on November 6, 2009. It is based on the book of the same title by author Jon Ronson, an account of the investigation by Ronson and John Sergeant into attempts by US military forces to use psychic powers.

Plot

The film follows Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), whose wife leaves him for the newspaper's editor. Seeking an escape, Bob flies to Kuwait to report on the Iraq War and to prove to his wife and himself that he is a man. However, he stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets a retired Special Forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who reveals that he was part of an American army unit training psychic spies (or "Jedi Warriors") to develop a range of parapsychological skills including invisibility, remote viewing, and phasing. The back story is told mainly through flashbacks.

In 1972, U.S. Army officer Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), after accidentally falling out of a UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" helicopter in the Binh Duong province of Vietnam, found his men to be unable or unwilling to fire on a female Viet Cong soldier before she shot him in the chest. He then underwent a fact-finding mission prompted by a vision where the Viet Cong soldier says, "their gentleness is their strength." The bulk of Django's mission immersed him into the New Age movement so that, when he returned to Fort Bragg in 1980, he had long braided hair and a tattoo of a third eye surmounted on a pyramid on his chest.

Facilitated by the open-minded General Hopgood (Stephen Lang), Django led the training of a New Earth Army, with Lyn Cassady and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) as his top students. The two quickly developed a lifelong rivalry because of their opposing views of how to implement the New Earth Army philosophy; Lyn wanted to emphasize the positive side of the teachings, whereas Larry was more interested in the "dark side".

Prompted by a doodle in Bob's notebook (of an eye on a pyramid), Lyn takes him into Iraq. They are kidnapped by criminals who want to sell them to the insurgents, but escape with fellow hostage Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and are rescued by a private security detail led by Todd Nixon (Robert Patrick). When the detail is caught in a firefight, the three of them flee. Bob and Lyn then continue on Lyn's vague mission involving a vision he had of Bill Django.

After taking the wrong fork in the road, their car hits an IED. Bob and Lyn wander in the desert where Lyn reveals that he had stopped a goat's heart to test the limit of his mental abilities, an action he feels has cursed him. As part of this curse, it is revealed that Hooper conducted an unauthorized LSD experiment in which a soldier killed himself, forcing Django out of the Army.

Eventually, Bob and Lyn are rescued and rehabilitated at a camp run by PSIC, a private research firm engaged in psychological and psychic experiments on a herd of goats and some captured locals. To Lyn's dismay, Larry Hooper runs the firm and employs Django, now a depressed alcoholic. Bob spends time with Django and learns the ways of the New Earth Army. They spike the water and food of the base with LSD and free both the goats and captured locals. Following this, Lyn and Django fly off in a helicopter, never to be heard from again, disappearing into the sky "like all shamans".

Bob returns to work as a reporter and writes an article about his entire experience with Lyn. However, he is frustrated in that the only portion of the story to be aired on the news is how the captives were forced to listen to 20 hours of the Barney & Friends theme song. This dilutes his story to the level of a joke, and Bob vows to continue trying to get the bigger story out. In the film's final scene, Bob exercises his own psychic abilities and, following intense concentration, runs through a solid wall in his office.

Cast

From left to right: cast members Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, and director Grant Heslov attending the film's premiere at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

• George Clooney as Lyn Cassady, is a combination of several real-life psychic spies. Elements of his character are primarily based on Glenn Wheaton. Additionally he has background details that match that of Guy Savelli, the man who claims to have killed a goat by staring it down and now runs a dance studio just as Lyn does in the movie. Also some of Lyn's actions in the movie echo Peter Brusso's interactions with Jon Ronson, particularly the Predator scene, and the "attack me" scene.
• Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton, apparently inspired by Jon Ronson, the investigative journalist who uncovers the bizarre truth.
• Jeff Bridges as Bill Django, based on Jim Channon who spent two years in the 1970s investigating new age movements, and subsequently wrote an operations manual for a First Earth Battalion.
• Kevin Spacey as Larry Hooper. An apparent original creation for the movie, Larry represents the dark side of the New Earth Army and wishes to use the non-lethal technologies in harmful ways and the main antagonist of the film.
• Robert Patrick as Todd Nixon, an original character heading up a unit of a private security firm work in the post-invasion Iraq.
• Stephen Lang as General Hopgood, who is based on Major General Albert Stubblebine III, and firmly believes people can walk through walls.
• Stephen Root as Gus Lacey, who introduces Bob to the concepts of the New Earth Army; also somewhat based on Guy Savelli.
• Rebecca Mader as Debora Wilton, Bob's estranged wife; an original character.
• Glenn Morshower as Major Jim Holtz, a more by-the-book soldier.
• Waleed Zuaiter as Mahmud Dash, an Iraqi who gets captured with Cassady and Wilton.

Differences from the book

The film is inspired by British journalist Jon Ronson's book, which was accompanied by 2004 Channel 4 three-part documentary Crazy Rulers of the World. In turn, Ronson had dedicated his book to journalist and filmmaker John Sergeant, who worked intensely through 2003 and 2004 on the original documentary. However, Sergeant has complained he has not received any credit for his part in formulating what was the inspiration for the movie. John Sergeant's version of events is corroborated by a number of sources: the book The Men Who Stare at Goats itself is dedicated to John Sergeant, and the afterword states: "John's research and guidance can be found on every page". Further, Colonel John Alexander - one of the leaders of the story - has written to Sergeant: "If you want support for your position, tell reporters (or lawyers) to contact me. You were definitely the key person in developing the whole Goats project."

The movie is very different from the book: the book is essentially sixteen separate chapters whose only link is their connection to the use of unusual approaches that the army and intelligence services have used, whereas the movie has a linear plot. Both the book and movie start with a general's attempt to walk through a wall (General Hopgood in the movie, and Major General Albert Stubblebine III in the book), but in the movie, these and the other attempts at psychic powers later prove successful, unlike in the book. The book instead chronicles how Uri Geller got Jon Ronson interested in the idea of the goat labs. Real-life Guy Savelli in the movie becomes both Gus Lacey (Stephen Root) and George Clooney's character, Lyn Cassady. Lyn also has characteristics of Peter Brusso, particularly his use of the "Predator".

Reception

The film received mixed reviews from film critics. Review website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 53% of 183 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.7 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that "Though The Men Who Stare at Goats is a mostly entertaining, farcical glimpse of men at war, some may find its satire and dark humor less than edgy." Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 41%, based on a sample of 31 reviews.

Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, has a rating score of 54 based on 33 reviews. George Clooney's performance was received very positively with the following comments from the Irish Times: "Clooney shines in this remarkable story, based on actual events...Clooney is now pretty much the sole bearer of the 'classic movie star' tag, and once again, he injects a performance with a Coen brothers level of quirky. His twitches, his more ponderous moments; you buy this character because it's Clooney, and he's exceptional here."

DVD release

The Men Who Stare At Goats was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Region 1 on March 23, 2010, and was released in Region 2 on April 19, 2010. The extras include "Goats Declassified: The Real Men of the First Earth Battalion".

See also

• David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981) takes a far darker view on the topic of mental abilities of this kind.
• In 1983, BBC's Horizon aired an episode on the topic of psychic powers and the battle for supremacy in their application between the Soviet Union and the United States. The program examined the topic of remote viewing and the CIA's employment of psychic spies using this technique.

External links

• Official website
• The Men Who Stare at Goats at AllMovie
• The Men Who Stare at Goats at Box Office Mojo
• The Men Who Stare at Goats at IMDb
• The Men Who Stare at Goats at Metacritic
• The Men Who Stare at Goats at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Crazy Rulers of the World at IMDb]