Men Who Stare at Goats

Review By: Gene McCarthy
GeneMcCarthy@TheCinemaSource.com

Movie Grade: C

George Clooney teams up once again with Grant Heslov, who helped write the screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. This time Heslov is at the helm as the director of Men Who Stare At Goats, a film based on the book by Jon Ronson about the U.S. Army’s paranormal unit, psychic soldiers known as The Green Earth Army. This division of soldiers was trained to defeat the enemy with their psychic powers, as opposed to the more conventional methods of using guns and bombs.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a down-on-his-luck reporter from Ann Arbor Michigan. When his wife leaves him for his editor, he decides to go to the Middle East to cover the Iraq war and prove to himself and his ex-wife that he is not a wuss. Instead, he ends up cooling his heels in a plush hotel in Kuwait City, waiting for clearance to cross into Iraq. Enter Lyn Cassady (Clooney), who meets Bob at the hotel, takes him under his wing, and divulges to him that he was once part of an elite army team, who called themselves Jedi’s. Given that McGregor played a Jedi Knight in the last three Star Wars installments, the irony is amusing. Lyn explains that he and his platoon were trained to achieve superior mental clarity, giving them “super powers,” like the ability to pass through walls and manipulate the mind, among other feats. Only, they aren’t so good at the passing through the wall thing.

Flashback to the Vietnam War, where Bill Django (Bridges) comes into the story. After being wounded, he has a vision and upon his return to the states decides to go on a journey to try and discover what his vision meant. He explores all kinds of alternative methods of strengthening the mind and returns to Fort Bragg a full-blown peace-loving hippie. He starts the New Earth Army, where soldiers were trained to dance, and explore their feelings, however they are also psychic spies trained to use their paranormal powers against their enemies. Problem is, they never actually have any proven success in this area. That is except for Lynn, who seems to be the only one who actually shows any promise.

Lyn was considered Jango’s most gifted pupil and incites the jealousy of Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), a very ambitious newcomer to the group. Jango is dishonorably discharged when one of his trainees becomes a casualty of an LSD trip gone horribly wrong. Hooper takes over, and The New Earth Army takes on a more sinister and dubious meaning and twisting Django’s peaceful hippie vision.

I don’t mind saying that George Clooney has grown on me as an actor. He is getting better at his craft with each new project. I found him to be quite funny in this role, as an innocent, somewhat naïve psychic soldier. McGregor always delivers a solid performance, and this was no exception. He plays the rather ...