War on Drugs

The Men Who Stare at Goats

** out of ****

Directed by: Grant Heslov

Starring: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey

Running Time: 93 minutes

Jim Morrison’s hypnotic drawl – featured in the Doors’ tune “The End” – opens the 1979 war classic Apocalypse Now. If director Grant Heslov had decided to pay homage to the Vietnam epic in his latest film, the oddly titled The Men Who Stare at Goats, he could have played another Doors classic: “People Are Strange.”

Based on a book of the same title by Jon Ronson, Goats is a zany, bizarre and often hilarious glimpse of war, featuring an all-star cast. Unfortunately, it lacks wit, depth and – of all things – a point.

The film is like a goat itself: light on its toes but with a noticeable lack of meat on its bones.

Its narrator is Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a by-the-book reporter for the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram. After his marriage falls apart, Wilton flies overseas to cover the Iraq War.

There, he bumps into a Special Forces operator named Lyn Cassady (George Clooney, sporting the stiffest moustache featured on screen this year). Cassady reveals to our eager journalist that he, many years ago, partook in an experiment by the US military, in a New Age combat unit training “Jedi Warriors” (McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the recent Star Wars prequels, keeps a straight face).

Through a plethora of flashbacks, Cassady introduces the birth of the New Earth Army. Founded in the 1980s by the goofy Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), it was established to conduct military training using "spiritual" methods. Hence, the soldiers learned paranormal psychological skills. Cassady recounts that he excelled at these offbeat methods of battle, including invisibility, cloud bursting and intuition.

He was Django’s finest recruit, and was admired by his unit. But, it wouldn’t take special “Jedi” training to notice that the rude, shifty Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), another New Age “warrior,” was envious of Cassady’s swift progress.

Shifting back to the present day, Cassady leads the way into Iraq to finish a top-secret mission, with Bob at his side to capture the story. Along the way, they meet their fair share of kidnappings, firefights and IEDs, to name a few of the bumps on their collision course.

The flashback sequences, chronicling the rise and descent of the New Earth movement of psychic combat, are inspired, zanily funny, and as the onscreen text proclaims, more true “than you would believe.”

Unfortunately, the modern-day elements of the film, featuring Wilton and Cassady, have little drive or intrigue.

This is due to Ewan McGregor’s flat performance. The fine Scottish actor puts much effort into honing his American accent but fails to transmit any life into his character, who ultimately becomes a two-dimensional journalist archetype. We return to his present-day bits while yearning to remain in the loosy-goosey “Jedi warrior” training camp flashbacks.

McGregor is a dull patch of sand in an oasis of dynamic, yet deadpan comic performances. George Clooney skillfully merges a tough sense of shrewdness with a bowlful of craziness as the psychic expert. And Jeff Bridges channels his shaggy “dude” persona yet again – and that’s not a bad thing at all.

On the other hand, Kevin Spacey lives up to his surname in some instances, but his antagonistic rival, Hooper, has little material to work with.

Jon Ronson’s book was acclaimed for its swift blend of the bizarrely amusing with the incredibly disturbing. The film adaptation places firm (and unfortunate) emphasis on the former.

Heslov is keen on kooky slapstick bits, while ignoring the compelling wartime issues that could have made this feature gritty and relevant.

He turns Ronson’s investigative account into a farce, and the results go awry.

Some scenes depicting the carnage in Iraq are entirely bloodless. Moments of Bob and Lyn uncovering some horrific findings, especially toward the film’s end (that I will save spoiling), are skimmed over to pave the way for cheap sight gags.

The Men who Stares at Goats is inspired and quite hilarious at points, but by the mindlessly dumb finale – one that would have made Dr. Timothy Leary proud - it isn't a movie worth staring at for 93 minutes. The horror, the horror.