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...List cast, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” might just have easily been titled, “I’m An Oscar-Nominated Actor—Get Me Out Of Here!” Clocking in at a merciful 93 minutes, the film features George Clooney desperately attempting to spin screenplay straw into gold as Lyn Cassady, retired psychic operative of the United States’ “New Earth Army,” a division of the military trained to harness the power of the mind in combat. Ewan McGregor?...
What is Cassady’s secret mission in Iraq? Does he really have psychic powers? What does the film have to say about modern America’s involvement in the Middle East? Alas, this movie is not the place to find answers to these questions, or pretty much any of the others posed by its premise. Answers would imply it is in the business of making sense, which it decidedly is not. There is a pretense of political parable—an honest Iraqi who shelters our heroes, a stereotypical condescending American contractor preparing to exploit a country...
Clooney, with an assist from a hippie hairdo (sported in flashbacks), tries admirably to save an unsalvageable script. But he can only play the enigmatic “is he psychic, is he not” card so many times before audience members realize that the film has punted on the question entirely. McGregor delivers all his lines in monotone and does an impressive job at repelling any attempt at empathizing with his character. It is unclear why Kevin Spacey was needed at all for this production when an extra off the Hollywood strip could have delivered his seven...
...hotel room, a desert, and a car. Also, a cave. The soundtrack, like the storyline and Grant Heslow’s direction, is forgettable, consisting of predictable tone music and a single use of “More Than a Feeling.” To be fair, the film does have several good lines (Clooney to a fleeing Iraqi, before hitting him with a car: “It’s okay, we’re Americans—we’re here to help you!”), delivered with the comedic skill one would expect from...
...strange time for the movies when the cleverest cultural commentary of recent memory was put out by Ben Stiller (“Tropic Thunder”) and the trippiest, most nonsensical film of 2009 stars George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, and Kevin Spacey. Ultimately, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” is a monumental waste of talent, employing A-List actors in the cinematic equivalent of the “no soap radio” gag. It is a prank without a punch line, a satire without a point, a joke at which we are supposed...