Of Men and Goats

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2010)

Some consider this darkly comical fantastically realistic comedy about a top secret special unit in the 1980's U.S. Army, a brilliant satire on war and paranoia. The others dismiss it is a failure on the level of the infamous high-budget desert comedy of the Cold War era, Ishtar (1987). I personally think "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is a curious, cerebral, funny and poignant parody/spoof of and at the same time the dedication to many outstanding films, as different as Dr. Strangelove.., Star Wars epics, The Big Lebowski, and even the Silence of the Lambs. The famous and talented actors simply bring their characters from the earlier movies to The Men Who Stare at Goats. The film is notable for the funny, surreal narrative style with numerous leaps from present day to the not so distant past, when the two superpowers tried to create super powerful weapon against each other, using the supernatural and paranormal phenomena. This is the movie where Jeff Bridges in the full Dude Lebowski mode joins the Army and forms the Special Unit, First Earth Battalion that trains the soldiers to become the "warrior monks" who'd possess the supernatural power and be able to use their minds as the deadly weapon. The mandatory part of the training involves LSD experimentation and daily worship of Mother Earth as a source of supernatural abilities. This is the movie, where Obi-Wan-Konobi (Ewan McGregor) has no idea who the Jedi are, and the character played by Kevin Spacey is taken by the dark side of the force because of his supernatural stubbornness and meanness. As for George Clooneys Gus, the Master, the best in the unit in the past but lost and confused now, he can't forget the death of one goat that he caused by just staring at it during the experiments. Gus believes that if he saves one goat, just one from the cruel experiments now, the dead animal would stop staring at him in his memory with the unbearable silence of the goats.
In short, if you like the absurdist, off-beat, cerebral films -I highly recommend this. If not - don't stare at the goats.
7.5/10