In Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats, which is out this week, you can see further vindication of the maxim that 'military intelligence' is a misnomer. Inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction book, it's the story of a top secret U.S. Army unit, active during the 1970s and 1980s, that was designed to create psychic super soldiers – warriors with great karma who could hide from an enemy in plain sight, literally walk through walls or stop an adversary's heart with telepathic thought.
With Jeff Bridges as the commander of the First Earth Battalion, George Clooney as his star pupil and Kevin Spacey as the renegade officer who brought the project down, The Men Who Stare at Goats sits in the rich line of black comedies about how the armed forces turn the rational into the deluded, creating nonsense and conundrums even as they're charged with waging war or defending their homeland.
Next time you're off duty, consider checking out these earlier efforts.
Debate rages about whether the film that nearly killed Francis Ford Coppola is the greatest war film ever made, or is the finest anti-war film, but beneath that there's a stream of coal black comedy – literally deathly – about how the United State Army went collectively made during the Vietnam War. They are their own enemy, with one Special Forces officer (Martin Sheen) sent upriver to assassinate a superior who has gone rogue (Marlon Brando). In one scene Sheen's boat comes across an outpost defending a bridge – every day it is built and officially reported open, every night the Viet Cong destroy it. “Who's the commanding officer here?” Willard asks a hysterical trooper. “Ain't you?” comes the reply.
Buried in the wake of 9/11, when a film portraying U.S. soldiers as drug dealing criminals couldn't be circulated, Australian director Gregor Jordan's adaptation of Robert O'Connor's novel is set on a U.S. Army base in 1980s West Germany where the Cold War is winding down and the only thing the enlisted men fight for is the narcotics trade. “Soldiers with nothing to kill except time,” is how the canny Ray Elwood (Joaquin Phoenix), an entrepreneur in a uniform, puts it. Ray runs an illegal empire and the only thing to fear is the destruction wrought when the men are given tanks and sent on a training exercise.
Catch 22 (Mike Nichols, 1970)
Coming off The Graduate, director Mike Nichols and writer Buck Henry went to work on adapting Joseph Heller's 1961 novel about the ludicrous ticking clock that hangs over a U.S. Air Force unit in World War II where the amount of missions they must complete means their death is virtually guaranteed. No rationale can get them out, as bombardier Joseph Yossarian (Alan Arkin) learns from his base's doctor, who explains that an airman, “would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he'd have to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't, he was sane and had to.”
Convinced that the forces of communism are sapping the free world's strength through the fluoridisation of water, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) gives the order for his B-52 wing to attack the Soviet Union, urging his superiors to follow suit before the Russians retaliate. What ensures is a masterpiece of satirical black comedy, as leaders argue and their soldiers do their best to make sure the world isn't saved. “No fighting in the War Room,” may be the signature line, but Kubrick's doomsday scenario is full of still potent lines, delivered in several guises by the great Peter Sellers.
Sam Mendes take on Anthony Swofford's memoir of his service as a marine Scout Sniper during the first Gulf War riffs on the daily grind and bureaucratic chain of command that dogs all soldiers, but its ultimate aim is show what happens to soldiers who have been trained for years to kill and then don't get a chance to put their instincts to the test. Swofford Jake Gyllenhaal) and his spotter, Troy (a disquieting Peter Sarsgaard), are the embodiment of gung ho, but when the action passes them by they become desperate to get involved. The film shies away from the ultimate gag – that in desperation the soldiers start killing each other – but it comes awfully close.
M*A*S*H* (Robert Altman, 1970)
Robert Altman's Palme D'or winning skewering of the military establishment was set during the Korean War, but it was plainly a commentary on the then raging conflict in Vietnam, following the misadventures of a group of military doctors living near the frontline. While the action of “Trapper” John (Elliott Gould) and Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) was a simple reproach to authority (an awfully popular topic in 1970), they also served to allow the doctors to carry on saving the lives of soldiers who would be sent back to keep fighting. The antics mask the true punchline: the beatnik doctors are part of the machine.
Filmmaker Danis Tanovic's debut feature was released in 2001, when the landscape of his native Bosnia was still marked by the bitter, divisive struggle that had divided the former Yugoslavia. In the aftermath of a battle a Bosnian Muslim, Ciki (Branko Duric) and a Bosnian Serb, Nino (Rene Bitorajac), are stranded near each other, each trapped. Near them another Bosnian Muslim soldier, Cera (Filip Sovagovic) has been turned into a living booby-trap. The stalemate draws the attention of U.N. peacekeepers, but they can't separate the three men (let along their fledgling countries), and it's only the attention of the international media that makes them stay even as the tiring soldiers struggle to stay alive.
“Are we shooting people or what?” are the first words spoken in David O. Russell's razor sharp send-up of military morality. The first Gulf War may well be over, but no-one's sure – they end up shooting. With a map procured from an uncomfortable location, Special Forces officer Archie Gates (George Clooney) takes three reservists (Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze) on a private mission to recover a stash of gold purloined by Saddam Hussein. Combat has ceased, leaving Saddam's troops to concentrate on subjugating the rebellious population. “Bush told the people to rise up against Saddam,” Gates explains. “They thought they'd have our support. They don't. Now they're getting slaughtered.”
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