Boy, where to begin with this movie? The Men Who Stare at Goats is an odd experience, perhaps because you're a little unsure about how much of it to believe. Sure, it claims that it's based on fact -- but did the U.S. Government really train soldiers in ESP, teaching them how to 'cloud-burst' and give people the 'sparkly-eye' (you don't want to know)?
A grain of salt is required for all this. The Men Who Stare at Goats, Grant Heslov's first feature film as director, is based on a non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Ronson. The book is written with the same tongue-in-cheek tone that imbues its adaptation, but it does claim to be based entirely in fact. The story begins with a jounralist for the Ann Arbor Telegram named Bob Wilton (Ewen McGregor), who interviews a former soldier who claims that some weird shit happened when he was in the army in the early '80s. He claims a hippy named Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, fresh from his Oscar) convinced the military to ordain a "New Earth Army" (or as I like to call it, the Church of Lebowski -- Bridges enjoyably rehashes his famous role as The Dude in this one), a team endowed with apparently 'supernatural' gifts.
After Wilton's wife walks out on him for another man, he treks to Kuwait (circa 2002) to pursue a story exciting enough to... I dunno, win her back? His logic is a bit warped, but he's a broken-hearted journalist, and I guess he figures words are his best weapon to try to win back the woman he loves. He bumps into an American military man named Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney), a legend of the New Earth Army. He decides to tag along on Cassidy's journey through the Middle East to get a bigger scoop on this weird story.
It's around this point that the movie begins to lag a bit. The sequences between Clooney and McGregor are great, and Clooney produces yet another predictably unusual, intelligently timed performance. Once they get into the Middle Eastern desert, though, director Heslov struggles to keep the comedic momentum up. The movie flashes back and forth between events 20 years earlier that led to Cassidy becoming the legend of military paranormal ability that he is today. I wonder if Lyn Cassidy actually exists. I really hope he does. If he's half as interesting and, well... deluded as Clooney plays him, he deserves a movie to be made in his honour.
The Men Who Stare at Goats doesn't quite fly as high as it would like, despite funny performances from Kevin Spacey and George Clooney, particularly. Maybe its subject matter is too innately silly, and some stretches of the film too lethargic, to really captivate the imagination. I will say this, though -- The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with one of the funniest opening scenes in recent memory. Even if you walk out after the first minute and a half, you'll get at least one good chuckle.
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