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THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS |
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Considering the talent involved, one can't help but feel disappointed in Grant Heslov's
"Men Who Stare at Goats" based on Jon Ronson's 2004 non-fiction book. NOTE: That doesn't mean it is acurate or true.
Yet it is not surprising since each of the stars has been know to appear in a dud or two! Hey, everyone
can't be Jack Nicholson. I couldn't help but think of how much this harkened back to
anti-military satire about the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, vaguely recalling the far superior Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove: Or I Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and Robert Altman's "M.A.S.H.". Sort of. It tells the story of Lyn Cassady (George Clooney) who is involved with
an experimental U.S. military unit engaged in a different type of warfare during the Iraq War. |
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The team is made up of soldiers who excersise a type of Jedi Mind power that
allows them unparalleled psychic powers that can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it, all of which is shown in the movie, though not very well.
We are taken on a flashback ride to meet the group's founder Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) who comes off as a sort of
burned out left over hippie type. (Basically Bridges in his "Big Lebowski" mode.) We then learn that Django has mysteriously disappeared. Cassady takes it upon himself to go searching for Django along with reporter
Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) in a whacky kind of Keystone Kops caper ala "O Brother Where Art Thou". The pair tracks Django to a clandestine
training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is
trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django’s New Earth Army
and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. It soon becomes clear that, in order
to survive this wild adventure, Wilson will have to outwit the kind of enemy he never
even thought had existed.
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At this point this is when the film should have taken off.
After all, Kevin Spacey is at his best as a bad guy. But it doesn't. Instead it becomes a series of comedy clips that could have been performed on
Saturday Night Live. Considering the quality of "Hurt Locker" and "The Messenger" it is almost regrettable to see
"The Men Who Stare At Goats." Fortunately (or not) the film's release comes just prior to two other Clooney films: "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Up in the Air".
And fortunately "The Men Who Stare at Goats" isn't terribly awful. Though not the quality one would expect, I can't help but think that it is heading straight for the cult library! --GEOFFREY BURTON
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