Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Released March 4, 2010

George Clooney and a goat seeing who will blink first

Do you believe you could stop the heart of a goat with only the power of your mind? The men in The Men Who Stare at Goats think so, and, apparently, some real soldiers in the US military believed they could too.

Based on a sort-of-true story in Jon Ronson’s book on the same name, the film depicts the bizarre training of the First Earth Battalion, a New Age version of the military dreamed up in the 70's in reaction to the Vietnam war.

George Clooney stars as one of the original members of the movement, Lyn Cassady, who is currently on a mission in present day Iraq. He claims to have psychic powers and keeps in shape by bursting clouds with his mind. In flashback we see his training under hippie flower-loving leader Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Most seem to accept the group’s airy Earth-loving philosophy, except for Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who would rather use his powers to learn the ways of the dark side.

That’s not just a snappy pop-culture reference either as Cassiday likes to call himself a “Jedi Warrior”. He speaks knowingly about his bushido to an embedded reporter, played indifferently by an American-accented Ewan McGregor, who thinks he’s stumbled upon the story of a lifetime.

I know what you’re thinking: surely this can’t be a true story? Despite a Fargo-esque claim at the outset, the farce on screen certainly isn’t. More a series of offbeat gags than a coherent satire, it’s a case where the actors seem to have had more fun making it than an audience does watching it.

It’s tricky material, and director Grant Heslov, Clooney’s producing partner, never finds the right balance between flippancy and sincerity. Clooney, however, is entertaining playing a variation of his Coen-brothers dumb guy act, and Spacey gets all the best moments as the angry rebel.

Goats is an amusing diversion (with an appropriately loopy title) but enjoyment wears thin as it becomes clear that none of the characters are keen to wake from their deluded LSD-induced slumber.

Review: Up in the Air (2009)

Released January 7, 2010

No film has better captured the confusion and alienation of the post Bush-era recession than Jason Reitman’s latest, a sly and poignant study of a man who goes everywhere and nowhere.

He is Ryan Bingham (George Clooney). You know the type. Smart suit, smooth talking, efficient but empty. He lives in an airport lounge, travelling across the country firing people for a living. Sometimes he gives motivational speeches, extolling the virtues of living an attachment free life. If the sum of your relationships and possessions were a backpack, he says, his would be empty. And he wants yours to be too.

But his boss (Jason Bateman) is about to take him off the road. He is to be replaced by a more efficient iPhone-generation firing system suggested by the ambitious but inexperienced Natalie (a wonderfully zestful Anna Kendrick). In a last ditch effort to maintain his lifestyle, Ryan takes Natalie on the road to show her what firing people is really like.

Bingham ends up learning as much from her as she does from him, though his real muse is the seductive Alex (Vera Farmiga, The Departed). With her he finds a kindred spirit, and for the first time considers whether there are things more important than his dream of obtaining 10 million frequent flyer miles.

The story could have easily slipped into romantic comedy clichés (and, despite its often profound subject matter, it is very funny), but Reitman, who also co-wrote the screenplay from Walter Kim’s novel, is too clever for that. Underneath the witty banter and screwball comedy sensibility, there’s a humbling and sad realization about life in the technological age. The reality is amplified by scenes involving real people describing their anguish, fear, and uncertainty following the widespread layoff of staff.

Clooney has never been better, still the smooth charmer he’s always been, and Farmiga and Kendrick are his match. Jason Reitman has already made the excellent Thankyou for Smoking and Juno. With Up in the Air he’s topped them both. A.O. Scott called it “a classic in the making”. He’s not wrong.