History Film / TheMenWhoStareAtGoats

* TooFunnyToBeEvil: [[spoiler:How PSIC's "dark side" experiments get played in the press at the end of the movie.]]

** The First Earth Battalion and the whole concept of psychic soldiers is showcased to be one, although not said outright. The third act involves the protagonists discovering Larry's work to make the division more practical in terms of an intelligence arm... which involves [[spoiler:torturing insurgents for information. It's also mentioned in passing that they also used to mutilate insurgent corpses, presumably for shock and awe.]]

* AwesomeButImpractical: A man lifting bags of sand on hooks hung through his ''scrotum'' is asked what practical purpose it could possibly have.

* FateWorseThanDeath: [[spoiler: Locking people in small rooms wherein you flash blinding strobe lights at them while continually playing the "I Love You, You Love Me" song from ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' as loud as you can without making them permanently deaf, until they break from sleep deprivation and sensory overload.]] Variations of this are actually TruthInTelevision.

* EvilIsPetty: Whether or not there's something real about it, [[spoiler:striking a man with a Dim Mak attack, the mythical "death blow", which may have given him cancer]], on top of getting him dishonorably discharged from the Army for the stupid thing ''you'' did is just plain being [[DisproportionateRetribution a disproportionately massive dick]]. Can't expect anything less from a bastard like Larry, though.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: In theory, the whole movie is ambiguous about whether the psychic powers are real, delusions, or deliberate misdirection. The question is generally {{played for laughs}}. [[spoiler:In the final shot, Bob is shown performing the running through walls trick Hopgood attempted at the beginning of the movie successfully. However, a second after he's shown doing so, a picture frame falls off the wall, implying that he ''could'' have actually slammed into it but imagined himself going through. Like every other "paranormal" incident in the movie, it's up to the viewer to decide.]]

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: There are a few scenes in which EwanMcGregor is obviously trying to avoid using his regular accent and is failing miserably.

* WholePlotReference: Think ApocalypseNow as a comedy and set in a desert.

* PornStache: Gen. Hopgood and at the end of the film, Bob.

** To Theatre/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead: When Lyn drives the car into a rock in the middle of the desert, he and Bob pass the time by flipping a coin that continually lands with the head side facing up, as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern do to begin the play.

->''"[[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer More of this is true than you would believe.]]"''

* {{Badass}}: Lyn brought down an armed man with his hands tied in front of him and walked away from an IED explosion in a midsize sedan.

* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler: Bob and Bill decide to sabotage PSIC by putting LSD in the powdered eggs, sending the whole camp on a trip. Bill also decides to put LSD in the water supply as well without telling Bob.]]

''The Men Who Stare at Goats'' is a 2009 comedy film about a reporter who attempts to uncover the story of the so-called "Project: Jedi," a secret government organization dedicated to creating psychic [[SuperSoldier super-soldiers]] with the goal of bringing about world peace.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Averted at the end, as it turns out Larry is literally just trying to eat his gun while under the influence of LSD.]]

** The bizarre conversation between Brown and Hopgood fretting that "We can't afford to have the Russians leading the field in the paranormal" is strongly reminiscent of Turgidson complaining of a "mine shaft gap" with the Russians in ''Film/DrStrangelove'' (this "psychic powers gap" was in fact a [[TruthInTelevision real fear for the US Army at the time).

* NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: The movie opens with [[HeyItsThatGuy a mustachioed]] [[{{Film/Avatar}} Colonel Quaritch]] getting up from a desk and deliberately running head-first into a wall. Cut to a title card stating "More of this story is true than you would believe." The juxtaposition is funny.