The Men Who Stare At Goats

After an eventful Monday of screenwriting in the morning and Andy's new cinema class in the afternoon, not to mention being mugged for two bits of Chinese chicken during the lunch break, some people decided to round off the day by going to the cinema. The popular choice was the new feature 2012 that everyone is desperate to see "just for the effects" or "to see what it's all about" or perhaps in case there is some truth in the notion that apocalypse is due in the next three years.

However, having already seen this film the previous day, I along with Samuel Ferguson decided to go and see another movie. We decided that the new Michael Caine film, Harry Brown, would be our preferred choice but when we looked at the film times in the Renfrew Street Cineworld it was not on for a while so, not wishing to be defeated, headed for the other Cineworld in Parkhead. Here, we eventually made the decision to see The Men Who Stare At Goats, a new "comedy" starring Ewan McGregor, George Clooney and Kevin Spacey.

Given the fact that we'd had quite an analytical screenwriting class this very morning it probably helped me to think more critically about this film. Firstly, all films are meant to have a story - obvious, I suppose. Second, all comedy films are supposed to be funny, amusing, laughable etc. So for a movie that exhibits itself as a comedy film I expected it to have both a good story and a lot of funny parts. Sadly, however, I found it didn't really fulfill either of those roles particularly well.

In screenwriting today, we watched a couple of short films and had to then answer a series of questions about the storyline and other things. These included questions about the "inciting incident", the part in the exposition of a film that triggers the audience's interest and acts as a kind of "hook" for them to watch the rest of the film. Other questions included what the main character's goal is in the story, their motives, themes and morals present and general strengths and weaknesses of the films. So throughout The Men Who Stare At Goats I think I was subconsciously trying to answer some of these questions until I got bored of the movie and began to consciously answer them.

So back to the thing about films having a story. It's pretty much a requirement, and it's something the audience definitely want. Did The Men Who Stare At Goats have one? Not that I can think of. The film more or less just went on and on without any particular point or character journey. It wasn't clear at all what the two central characters' goal was or what they were trying to achieve. And on top of all that it just wasn't funny. It's quite painful when watching a film or TV programme where you know what the funny bits are meant to be but when they are executed on screen - even if it is by the likes of George Clooney et al - they are simply not funny. Throughout the entire movie I think I "laughed" about twice - and even then it was only one of those tiny wee laughs where the most noise you make is a short exhale through the nose. Then, at probably about three quarters of the way through, I found myself doing what we discussed today with Andy in class, in fact, I think I could relate to his own way of telling if he was bored with a film: I found myself looking at the fire escape and realised my mind had completely wandered away, I had effectively "dropped out" of the story and stopped believing in it. Once you hit that stage it's almost impossible for the movie makers to get your interest back and that's what happened to me.

Relating back to the questions posed by Richard in screenwriting class, I would say that I found it difficult to see where the inciting incident was. He left his wife, then decided to go to Iraq to prove himself, that's the only part I can really think of. After that it just seemed like a whole array of unconnected ideas with vague comical references in each of these scenes. As for the main character's motives and goals, as I've already said it was pretty unclear to me, throughout, what their overall objective was. And overall strengths and weaknesses well...it didn't have much of a story in my opinion, it wasn't funny and it was supposed to be a comedy. Strengths include the fact that out of the six people who were in the cinema, only one person left before the film had finished.