Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

Set in the early 00s, Ewan McGregor plays a journalist who in an effort to prove his worth to the wife who has just left him, goes to Iraq to cover the war there. At a bar in Kuwait he runs into a guy (George Clooney- with Tom Selleck’s facial hair), whose name he recognises from a list of names of operatives in a psychic warfare program by the US Government created in the 80s. Called Psi-Ops (or ‘Jedi Warriors’, Har-Har), they’re a special brand of ‘super soldier’. He got this information from a weirdo (Stephen Root) who claimed he had videotape evidence of his ability to kill a hamster with his mind (The title comes from a similar experiment to stop a goat’s heart). Anyway, McGregor decides to tag along with Clooney and learns about the New Earth Army, a hippy-dippy movement started by a Dude-like Vietnam Vet named Django (played by Jeff Bridges of course). Clooney at the time was considered the NEA’s top Jedi Warrior. We also learn how the NEA was overtaken by an ambitious Jedi Warrior (Kevin Spacey), who loathed Clooney and had his own ideas for the techniques carried out by the NEA. Meanwhile, as Clooney and McGregor find themselves in all kinds of trouble in Iraq, they eventually run into the NEA headquarters, still commanded by Spacey. Stephen Lang and Glenn Morshower play military men (the former unsuccessfully tries to walk through a wall in the opening scene), whilst Robert Patrick is a hard-arse mercenary (What, you were expecting him to be milquetoast?).

Actor/writer Grant Heslov tries his hand at directing with this surrealist 2009 film and proves that he’s watched a lot of Coen Brothers flicks. Unfortunately, I hate most of the Coen Brothers’ films (except “The Big Lebowski” and “Intolerable Cruelty”) and I found this supposedly ‘truer than you think’ military comedy supremely irritating, self-consciously weird, wholly unfunny (despite all the “Star Wars” in-jokes I never cracked a smile even once), and frankly, I didn’t find it remotely convincing either. Maybe the novel by British journalist Jon Ronson is indeed based on truth, but Heslov (who co-wrote “Good Night and Good Luck” with Clooney, and played one of Arnie’s comrades in “True Lies”) doesn’t make me believe it.

True or not (and remember, The Coens’ originally purported “Fargo” to be a true story but lied), the story might’ve been able to work with the right approach. In fact, Clooney starred in another madcap war film about a decade ago, “Three Kings” and that was pretty good (if a rip-off of the even more madcap “Kelly’s Heroes”). If this bizarro story really is true, just tell it as it was, and let the lunacy fly on its own. Unfortunately, it’s an absurd story that has been given an offbeat, absurdist approach by writer Peter Straughan and director Heslov, that never allowed me to get into it at all (It should be noted that I wasn’t a fan of other absurdist war films like “Catch-22” or “Dr. Strangelove”). It was too much and too heavy-handed.

Although everyone in the cast seems far too amused by how weird this all is, I can’t really fault the performances at all (aside from a surprisingly uninteresting Kevin Spacey in one of his weakest performances to date), but I was never for a second on this film’s bizarro wavelength. It’s just so heavy-handed, stupid and facile, and a waste of fine talent to boot.

Some of you will go with it, I didn’t. But if you like the Coen Brothers or Hunter S. Thompson, this might do something for you.

Rating: D