Staring at goats sends reporter on wild trip

By Greg Zeman
Staff Writer

“Men Who Stare At Goats” begins with a title that reads, “More of this is true than you would believe.” I can only advise you to apply that same preface to what you are about to read. The film, as incredulous as it seems, is based on a work of nonfiction.

The story is narrated by Ewan McGregor, who portrays the protagonist, the born-to-lose, small-time newspaper reporter Bob Wilton.

His wife leaves him for his one-armed editor, and in a fit of melancholy and emasculated shame, Wilton travels to Kuwait in hopes of reporting the Iraq war. Wilton does this to prove his worth to himself and his ex-wife, but mostly to spite his editor.

While he is in Kuwait trying to find a way into Iraq, Wilton meets Lyn Cassady, played with typical deadpan excellence by George Clooney. Cassady claims to be a retired special-operation’s  “psychic spy” trained by the U.S military in invisibility and “sparkly eyes,” an utterly indescribable technique which Cassady demonstrates and uses “remote viewing” to find hidden targets using only his mind. He tells Wilton he does this by entering a subconscious state of extreme visualization.

Cassady and Wilton enter Iraq and are promptly kidnapped by bandits who try to sell them to al-Qaida. Throughout their ordeal in the Iraq dessert, which, as a New Mexico transplant I recognized as White Sands Artillery Range, we are treated to a series of mind-blowing flashbacks which tell the story of Lt. Bill Django, a sincere idealist played by Jeff Bridges, and his efforts to create a more enlightened path for the U.S military and its soldiers to travel.

Kevin Spacey plays Cassady’s rival Larry Hooper, the villain of the film. He is the corrupting “serpent in the orchard” in the New Earth Army. Although not one of the more memorable Spacey performances, overshadowed by roles like Verbal Kint in “The Usual Suspects” and Jack Vincennes in “L.A Confidential,” Spacey brings a sufficient amount of insecure hostility to the character. At one point, in what must have been a directorial fit of silliness, Hooper performs the terrible Dim Mak, or death touch, on Cassady.

It’s incredible how much of the film’s story is based on fact.

Lt. Jim Channon, renamed Bill Django in the film, is a real person who researched  New Age philosophies and their possible use in combat. The manual Lynn Cassady shows to Wilton is called “Evolutionary Tactics,” the guide Channon wrote for the “warrior monks” of the First Earth Battalion, which the film renames the New Earth Army.

Although the film takes plenty of artistic license with its source material, it does so to achieve a specific effect. By highlighting the believe-it-or-not insanity of our military’s efforts to maintain dominance over the entire world “The Men Who Stare At Goats” manages to make a succinct, if not altogether earth-shattering statement on the general madness of war.

The movie also contains a scene in which an entire army platoon consumes powdered eggs and drinks water laced with LSD. It’s like they ripped the page with my alchemical formula for creating cinematic gold out of my journal and transferred it directly to the screen.

Overall, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” is a truly entertaining romp through a disorienting maze of corporate militarism, alternative religions, fanatical belief and the unspeakable, abject loneliness and total alienation of being a reporter. I recommend this film to psychics, soldiers, psychic soldiers and anyone over 15 and under the influence of psychoactive compounds. I, for one, am a better person for having seen this life-changing film. Now where the hell did I park my car and why am I so thirsty and naked?

“Evolutionary Tactics” can be viewed in it’s entirety at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/21926670/The-First-Earth-Battalion-Field-Manual