The Men Who Stare At Goats
Director: Grant Heslov
Fantastic Mr Fox
Director: Wes Anderson
Dead Man Running
Director: Alex de Rakoff
It is no good bleating about the bush. There is too much goat-staring and not enough about the men who feature in The Men Who Stare At Goats , the film version of Jon Ronson’s journalistic exposé of the United States Army’s “Psychic Operations’” activity in the Ronald Reagan era.
Granted, this is a work of fiction in which loser journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) follows disgraced psychic operative, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) into Iraq in the early noughties for reasons that are frankly anti-climactic. Lyn sees “Jedi potential” in Bob. Yes, we know that McGregor played a Jedi in the Star Wars movies, but this in-joke is just as tiresome to report as it is to watch. Over the course of this film, Bob narrates the rise and fall of the would-be psychics headed by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) who sought to “cloud bust” (part clouds), run through walls and kill a creature just by looking at it – the goat-staring exercise of the title.
For a film to make us think: “I cannot believe this is happening”, the action has to be placed within a realistic context. The problem is that neither screenwriter Peter Straughan nor debutante director and long-time Clooney collaborator Grant Heslov do this. There is an amusing conceit that the Americans get into “psy ops” because the Russians are doing it, while the Russians think the Americans have started work in this area, so they following suit. But the film does not explain why scientists have not been brought in to work with these unreconstructed hippies or similarly discredit them.
And there is a bigger credibility problem. Apparently, some of the activity yielded results. Lyn is able to locate a hostage and fell one of the aforementioned goats. The film-makers choose not to explore the consequences of this. Is Lyn a real psychic or was it all intuition? Was the goat merely very tired before it toppled over? There are no answers here. Instead we wait the next wacky set piece.
Generally, audiences have a low tolerance for wackiness. It becomes difficult to top something that is over-the-top in the first place. Consequently, The Men Who Stare At Goats becomes tedious pretty quickly.
None of the stars flesh out their characters. Clooney is in straight man mode. Bridges is the quintessential screen hippy. Kevin Spacey is typecast as a slimy guy with psychic ability envy. As for McGregor, he has only proved to be iconic when diving into a toilet in Trainspotting and has dived into quite a few movie toilets since – Deception, Angels & Demons and even The Phantom Menace.
Robert Patrick makes an all-too-brief appearance as a contractor hoping to
make a killing in Iraq, a reminder of the real war. He gets involved in a firefight with another group of contractors triggered by a backfiring motorcycle engine. The film similarly backfires.
The first adult film to be made from a children’s book is what audiences can expect from director Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation caper, Fantastic Mr Fox, adapted from Roald Dahl’s novel. With his co-writer Noah Baumbach, Anderson scripted the film in Dahl’s widow’s house. He shot it in Three Mills Studio, east London. Nevertheless, his American aesthetic, familiar to audiences of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou infects every scene. This is auteur cinema – transforming the material to reflect the director’s own preoccupations –
in its purest form and its subject is a dysfunctional family.
Country Fox (voiced by George Clooney) pledges to give up a life of raiding neighbourhood farms after escaping almost certain death with his pregnant wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep). Year later, he is restless living below ground. Although he never says it, his son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) is a disappointment to him. He chooses to live above his means – almost literally – by moving into a tree. Then, with faithful vole Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), he decides to break his vow by carrying out one last job – well, three last jobs – raiding the farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean: one tall, one short, one lean. It is the lean one (Michael Gambon) who is most determined to exact revenge.
The film bubbles with subtext. As the farmers pool their resources to root out Fox, regardless of the collateral damage to wildlife, we cannot help but identify them as the allies devastating Afghanistan and Iraq.
We are also supposed to identify with Fox because he is a wild animal. Anderson shows him breaking the neck of a chicken and advising Kylie to do the same. When Fox rows with his lawyer, Badger (Bill Murray), the pair growl at each other, bearing fangs. When Mrs Fox expresses her displeasure to Mr Fox, she scratches him across the face. Now tell me that this film is suitable for kids.
There are too many scenes when we are jerked out of the action. Yet there are funny moments, usually involving the glazed glances of Kylie. It is self-consciously quirky, notably when Jarvis Cocker turns up as a singer criticised for improvising a nonsensical song, rather than being emotionally involving. It ends with a goofy dance sequence in a supermarket, with Fox and his friends having infiltrated a capitalist stronghold owned by the three farmers and intent on bleeding it dry.
If this were for young ones, it would be the most subversive kids’ film ever. As it is, it suggests a scattergun critique of Western society – one with a weird smile on its face.
In British cinema at least, the crime thriller is the vanity genre of choice. There is an increasing trend for non-actors who want to see themselves on the big screen to bag a leading role in a caper flick. The genre is generally filled with sullen moody types who are occasionally required to beat people up, thereby showing off their physique (if they have one). The films generally rely on action: go here, pick this up, shake that person down, fly hither to this rich bloke’s house and help yourself to his valuables. Consequently, the leads don’t have to trouble themselves by simulating emotion. If real thespians are required, they can be coaxed into a couple of days work in supporting roles with a nice pay packet. The chances are that none of their peers will see the film, thus safeguarding future BAFTA nominations.
The latest example is Dead Man Running, which marks the debut as leading man in a feature film of Tamer Hassan. I’m not aware of his accomplishments outside of the silver screen, but I’m pretty sure they don’t include a seven-week run in a touring production of Rookery Nook. Hassan plays a hapless travel agent who owes £100,000 to Mr Thigo (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), who, for the purpose of getting his other debtors to fall into line, wants to make an example of him. He insists on repayment in 24 hours, which prompts the travel agent to engage in an accelerated version of “speculate to accumulate”. This involves robbing an old friend, taking part in an underground fight, fixing a greyhound race, buying cocaine, getting it re-cut to increase its street value, supplying the product at an illegal rave in Manchester and smashing up a garage in a desperate attempt to use the toilet. When things don’t go to plan (and they don’t with the loo), he agrees to shoot Omid Djalili.
Danny Dyer, a mainstay of the genre, turns up as the travel agent’s best friend, one who shows amazing loyalty to someone who sells skiing holidays in Dubai. Yes, this is a film that does not take itself too seriously. The travel agent’s poverty even forces his girlfriend to go back on the streets, which in other circumstances might be a cause for social realism.
Hassan actually does some proper acting here because his wheelchair-bound dear old (screen) mum (Brenda Blethyn) is being held hostage by mad dog Johnny (Phil Davis)
until he comes up with the cash. Blethyn gets an opportunity to wield a shotgun – the logical extension of her work with Mike Leigh in Secrets & Lies?
Director Alex de Rakoff has celebrity backers at his disposal and producers include footballers Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand. However, two of England’s back four cannot prevent this film from being an own goal, made as if British cinema had not moved on from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. l
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