The Men Who Stare at Goats

The Men Who Stare at Goats is the film adaptation of  Jon Ronson's book by the same name.  Based on John Sergeant's research about the United States military's experiments in New Age and psychic tactics, it has its basis in actual events.  Being that many of the actual events are probably classified or exaggerated, it is impossible to know just what is true here and what isn't - it's up to the viewer to decide for themselves.

Ewan McGregor is small time reporter Bob Wilton who first learns about the "New Earth Army" when interviewing Gus Lacey (Stephen Root) about his missing stapler psychic abilities.  When his wife decides to leave him shortly after, Bob runs off to Iraq in a bid to prove himself as a wartime reporter.  It's there that he happens to run into Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who Gus had mentioned as being the greatest psychic warrior of them all.  Determined to both get to the bottom of this strange tale, and get across the Iraq border by tagging along, Bob follows the eccentric Lyn into the war zone as well as into the past.  It's here that the story splits in two.  On one hand we have Bob and Lyn doing their thing, trying not to get killed by Al Queda or Robert Patrick.  One the other, we flash back to the forming of the New Earth Army by Bill Django (a very mellow Jeff Bridges) and are introduced to Lyn's nemesis, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey).

We're treated to the exploits of the "Jedi Warriors," both impressive and ludicrous.  I'm not sure if that term was originally in the book/script or not, but they certainly play it up in scenes such as the one where Clooney tells McGregor that there is a Jedi inside him.  No, duh.

The whole thing had a similar flavor to Clooney's recent comedy, Burn After Reading, though it felt a bit more cohesive than that curve-ball did. The two separate story arcs are told more or less through a series of vignettes (though the flashback more so than the present day) until the two more or less converge near the end.  Most of the movie stays pretty straight-faced despite the topic, and stays somewhat ambiguous as well as to never really say how much of their supposed powers were real or not (although the titular scene is pretty definitive).  The ending, however, resorts to some hokey special effects that I think that they could have easily done without.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is definitely off the wall running along the trail that splits from the beaten path.  It's fun, but never really ramps up.  It gets going, and then just keeps going at the same pace.  Slow and steady gets it successfully to the end, but it's not really that exciting of a race.  I would say it is worth seeing, but I wouldn't make it a priority.

*** (3/5 stars)