Os Homens que Encaravam Cabras

I guess I must have had high expectations coming into this film because although I enjoyed it I was left with a sense of "it could've been much better." The soundtrack was amazing and some of the acting left me smiling (but not laughing!). There were some great moments and some classic situations but I think the problem is that it's a one joke movie and sustaining the comedy for nearly two hours was too much.

All the usual suspects put in frenzied performances, but again I felt they were trying to hard. Don't bother to go to the theater. Wait for it on DVD. You'll enjoy it much more (rather than keep thinking about the 11 bucks you just spent!).

This film is about a journalist who goes to Iraq to find his ultimate story to prove to his wife the value of existence. He then travels with an eccentric ex American secret agent who claims to have supernatural abilities.

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" may have a great concept, but unfortunately it is not developed to anywhere interesting. It is a mix of comedy, action, drama and sci-fi. None of these elements are developed enough to make it stand out or make it shine. The plot is thin and underdeveloped, it cannot decide whether it wants to convince me there are supernatural powers or makes me shiver due to all the complicated politics in the army. It does not make me care about the characters or what they do either. The ending conflict is so weakly staged which feels so contrived. The end result of the film is a confusing and dull collection of scenes.

Taking the main absurdities from Ronson's book based on true events and adding a daft storyline to link it into some sort of flow, The Men Who Stare At Goats is decent and vaguely funny but misses serious potential. The draw to the book is that everything written is true (at least in certain people's eyes), whereas the film is mostly fictional, with true examples sprinkled in. Reading the information is far more entertaining and unbelievable than what is presented on screen. Although it wouldn't have been as traditional in cinematic values, following closer to the source material would have provided a more interesting film. Examples such as Barney the Purple Dinosaur torture are a lot more powerful than what is presented, and the film lacks any real impact. Acting is fine by all, a good cast and nothing can be faulted outside of the screenplay, which is still half-decent because of the absurdity involved, but overall it's quite lacklustre.

Well, I must say that I was looking forward to this movie - after reading the cast list and hearing a brief overview of the plot I felt that it had good potential. And whoever made the trailer did a very good job of making me want to see it.

Unfortunately, there seemed to me to be a certain amount of confusion about the film - were the directors entirely sure what type of film they were making? There are elements of comedy, satire, drama, action... but without having enough of each of these things to really give the movie a proper feel or direction. It veers close to being funny... and then veers off. It comes close to satirising American military tactics... and then goes off in another direction. I felt that a little more focus was needed overall to bring the film together.

In terms of acting, I think that generally the actors can be pleased with their work - I don't remember any specific cases of over or underacting, and the characters were about as believable as they could be in a film like this. As far as the comedy goes - this film was primarily marketed as a comedy - there are some genuinely funny moments! Overall, however, I felt that some bits needed to be trimmed down - the constant Jedi references were funny the first time but quickly wear thin.

The plot also needed a little bit of work: it started off with a promising storyline, and good editing I might add, but seemed to lose its way towards the end. It seemed as if the film-makers didn't really know where to go next. There were a few scenes that really didn't need to be included either - Robert Patrick's contribution to the film really added nothing, and could easily be removed. It was entirely forgettable and was simply a device to get the characters to the next place that they needed to be.

Overall I'd say this this is a fairly good film, certainly worth seeing. As for buying the DVD, that I'm not so sure about. If you're looking for a way to spend and hour and a half of your evening, while there are better films to see than this there are also considerably worse ones.

This film tells a story about a special army unit without having a real plot as even the main characters don't seem to know where they're heading. It's just an accumulation of absurd dialogues and crazy moments with real good actors that don't consider themselves too good to act silly (not too silly) although they certainly were unchallenged by the script. The shown sense of humour reminded me slightly of the humour in the fashion of the Coen brothers in terms of pace and surreality, however, less sarcastic, less biting and without cynicism. The characters are rather likable, harmless individuals trying to find peace in a violent surrounding. I would classify this film as a satire about everything the army represents in general and once you've realized how stupid the army is you'll find this an amusing 93 minutes of fun.