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PFF Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats
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(Grant Heslov, 2009)
George Clooney, the perfect athlete in American cinema – a favorite and an underdog at the same time – stars in another very smart film about the government. The Men Who Stare at Goats – based on Jon Ronson’s nonfiction study of the U.S. Army’s experiment with trained psychic ‘Jedi warriors’ – generates most of its laughs from the fact that it's based on truth. Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) has a spiritual experience while fighting in Vietnam and soon founds the New Earth Army with Lyn Cassady (Clooney) as a prodigious psychic. Ewan McGregor plays the journalist who learns the history of this underground unit and spends most of the movie wandering the Kuwait border with Cassady. Plentiful flashbacks are often hilarious and informative. The film, a well-cast crowd pleaser, never assumes that it is a political piece above a comedy. Even if it isn’t grandiose with its satire like Dr. Strangelove or rapid-fire in its comic delivery like In the Loop, it doesn’t have to be. Festival runs should give Goats a word-of-mouth boost if it even needs it.
8 out of 10 (Reviewed at the Philadelphia Film Festival)
An Overture Films release presented in association with Winchester Capital Management and BBC Films of a Smoke House Pictures/Paul Lister production. (International sales: Mandate Pictures, Santa Monica.) Produced by Paul Lister, George Clooney, Grant Heslov. Executive producers, Barbara Hall, Jim Holt, David Thompson. Directed by Grant Heslov. Screenplay, Peter Straughan.
Lyn Cassady - George Clooney
Bill Django - Jeff Bridges
Bob Wilton - Ewan McGregor
Larry Hooper - Kevin Spacey
Todd Nixon - Robert Patrick
Gen. Hopgood - Stephen Lang
Gus Lacey - Stephen Root
Maj. Jim Holtz - Glenn Morshower
Mohammad Daash - Waleed Zuaiter
Debora - Rebecca Mader
Running time: 93 mins.
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