On the couch

Goats. They’re a devisive subject. Whether eating them or watching them in association with international charmer George Clooney, they’re the Marmite of the meat and movie worlds.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, based on a book of the same name, is about as down the line love it-hate it as a flick can get.
Ewan McGregor plays hapless hack Bob Wilton who finds himself in Iraq in 2003 trying to prove he’s not a pointless pencil pusher to both himself and his ex-wife by getting involved in the coverage of war there.
A coincidence of, well, poorly scripted movie proportions, leads Wilson to fall in with self-professed retired psychic super soldier Lyn Cassady and the two end up traipsing across the desert as Cassady’s history in the New Earth Army – a US military programme established to develop soldiers’ spoon-bending mind powers to take warcraft to the next evolutionary level.
Sounds pretty wacky, right? It is. It’s also based on actual events and research carried out by Uncle Sam which is what elevates it from a wacky, Coen Brothers-like knockabout comedy to something sharper and more satirical. While it’s far off where Dr Strangelove or even Catch-22 are, the points are the same.
Co-starring Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey as the pioneering mind behind the NEA, Bill Django, and the Cassady’s nemesis, Larry Hooper, The Men Who Stare at Goats is at its best when flashing back to anecdotes from Cassady’s training – including his experimental attempt to kill a goat using just the power of his mind.
All of the stars play their roles with absolute deadpan brilliance and it’s their seriousness in dealing with such ridiculous material that makes matters so entertaining.
Where it falls down is the fact that all the random bits, moments and gags don’t add up to much more than a series of vaguely related incidents. It has more in common with an episode of the comedy sketch show than with an actual film.
And then there is the Marmite issue to deal with. Like the appreciation of that particular yeast extract, viewers will either dig this film or they won’t. It will either tickle your funny bone or make you want to throw a shoe at the screen. It’s that sort of flick.
In all likelihood, if you enjoyed such films as Buffalo Soldiers or Jarhead this will appeal to you. The cast is great, the gags come thick and fast and vary from clever references to laugh-out-loud slapstick. If not, then even the star-packed line-up will do nothing to redeem it.
It’s definitely worth a try though. Maybe get a backup just in case.
From one particular brand of Marmite to another. The Box is the latest film from former wunderkind Richard Kelly and seems to be, at best, a funny sort of flick that some people might enjoy but many will find willfully peculiar and, at worst, a load of self-indulgent pap.
The story is simple. At first. A suburban couple (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) find a box on their doorstep. Later, a stranger (Alan Arkin with some dodgy CG scars) arrives and tells them that if they press the button on the box he will give them one million dollars but someone that they don’t know will die.
Quite the quandary, eh?
What follows is an increasingly bizarre series of events featuring, amongst other oddities, prophetic babysitters, nosebleeds and weird, shimmery water effects. It’s almost Lost-like in its unnecessary complication, which isn’t to say that it isn’t entertaining – Twin Peaks was weird too and that was great – it’s just that it sometimes seems to be messing with the audience just for the sake of it. It’s almost like alienating the audience is the aim of the film.
The Donnie Darko creator has been carrying around his debut like a particularly annoying albatross since his ingenious odd-fest confused, thrilled and intrigued audiences almost 10 years ago.
Everything he’s laid his hand to since has been burdened with massive expectation and it makes it difficult to judge his work with anything close to an untarnished eye.
The Box isn’t a bad film by any measure. Diaz, Arkin and Marsden all turn in the sort of solid performances you’d expect from them and the story is an intriguing one.
It’s just that it reeks of trying too hard.