The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

O Masterpiece

O Excellent

O Good

O OK

X Mediocre

O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / November 7, 2009

A promising but unembellished shell-of-an-idea, “The Men Who Stare at Goats” is a comedy whose purpose is to deride the Bush administration and U.S. militarism, in general. It has surprisingly sparse “jokes,” or moments intended to be humorous, and the instances meant to have comedic effect barely evoke a smirk.

“Goats,” let’s call it, suggests that during the ’80s, in the spirit of exploring alternative warfare technology, the U.S. Army dabbled in extrasensory weaponry by attempting to develop a top secret unit of “psychic spies” — super-solider warrior monks who can fight with their minds.

We’re informed by the narration of Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), an aimless reporter for the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram. While trying to become a wartime journalist in Iraq, Wilton learns of “Project Jedi” and the afore described New Earth Army, which is led by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges in another “Dude-like” role).

The movie’s meandering, stream-of-consciousness narrative follows Wilton who follows the faintly clairvoyant Lyn Cassady, played by a zany George Clooney. These two go everywhere while the thin plot goes nowhere. A characteristically nefarious Kevin Spacey also joins the madness.

Sometimes a film unintentionally will have the misfortune of becoming art that imitates life — distastefully. Through no fault of its makers and by sheer coincidence, “Goats” features a scene where a soldier goes berserk and begins shooting at his fellow personnel stationed at his military base, a sequence that immediately echoes the shootings that occurred Thursday in Fort Hood, Texas.

Films facing this kind of sensitive predicament often will postpone their release date, if possible. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Collateral Damage,” which was initially slated for an October 2001 release — only a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, was delayed four months because of its terrorism theme.

But “Goats” was set to flicker in theaters nationwide Friday only about 24 hours after the Fort Hood incident; unfortunately for this film, the goats were already out of the barn, so to speak. Even so, one wonders why any recent film — much less a comedy — would depict a crazed gunman firing into a scattering crowd in this age of scarily frequent school shootings.

In summary, watching “Goats” is probably not nearly as funny — or as entertaining — as actually staring at real goats. Or put another way, if I were psychic, I would have seen “The Box” instead.

Directed by Grant Heslov

George Clooney / Ewan McGregor / Jeff Bridges

Comedy 93 min.

MPAA: R (for language, some drug content and brief nudity)