"The Men Who Stare At Goats" - REVIEW

There's nothing wrong with trying new things, but we should never forget what our strengths are. Grant Heslov, George Clooney's long-time producing partner, has had a successful run, most notably with the excellent "Good Night and Good Luck" (2005) which he also helped write. Unfortunately, Mr. Heslov's talents as a director don't quite measure up to those as a producer/writer. "The Men Who Stare At Goats", though competently made and amusing, is missing that crucial edge to make it work as a satire/farce.
Based on Jon Ronson's book, the film takes a look at the adventures of struggling reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) as he delves into the story of Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who claims to have been part of a secret psy-ops branch of the military during the 1980s. Wilton encounters Cassady by chance at a hotel in Kuwait, and after a few awkward moments begin a journey together to Iraq.
Though it's all amusing to watch, the feeling that "something" is missing becomes apparent quite early on. After a pitch perfect opening (during which a hilariously dead-serious Stephen Lang attempts to run through a wall), the humor devolves into jokes that are somewhat funny, but too soft. As a satire, Peter Straughton's script misses the mark; there isn't nearly enough bite. In fact, there times when there's really no bite at all. Much of it is just silly, while often playing it safe in situations that have the potential to become devastating satire.
Structure also contributes to the film's sense of shapelessness as well. The film is built heavily on flashbacks that chronicle Lyn's time in the psy-ops brach (named the New Earth Army), as well as introduce us to head NEA member Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), and Lyn's rival Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey). These flashbacks are certainly important to the story, but it feels as if more of the film takes place in flashback mode than in the film's "present". If you strip away the flashback sequences, all that's left is a weak story and an even weaker jab at the military, which is a shame considering all of the talent involved. Making matters worse is that the film, though not dull by any means, is always a step and a half behind in terms of comedic timing, rendering the funny moments worthy of a solid chuckle, but usually nothing more.
Now, to be fair, there are a handful of good laughs, and it's hard to fault the cast. Clooney, the closest the film has to a standout performance, nails the wacko facial expressions of Cassady while uttering his lines with perfect sincerity. Clooney also has good chemistry with McGregor, who plays the obligatory straight man role. Bridges and Spacey are fine with what they're given, which isn't much. Perhaps the best part of it all is that Bridges' role isn't a cheap recycled version of The Dude from "The Big Lebowski".
But despite being absolutely competent, Heslov's film simply isn't sharp enough, and it feels particularly dull coming only a few months after Armando Ianucci's razor-sharp "In the Loop". The cast is solid, but the characters aren't developed enough for the actors to bring any spark to them; the performances are all on roughly the same level, the only real difference being the amount of screen time. The film's biggest crime isn't that it's "bad" or "stupid", but simply that it feels to safe, and ends up be a pleasant diversion, but nothing else.

Grade: C+

New "Men Who Stare at Goats" trailer

Hilarious poster for "The Men Who Stare at Goats"

Variety gives a good review to "The Men Who Stare at Goats"

Source: Variety.com

An Overture Films release presented in association with Winchester Capital Management and BBC Films of a Smoke House Pictures/Paul Lister production. (International sales: Mandate Pictures, Santa Monica.) Produced by Paul Lister, George Clooney, Grant Heslov. Executive producers, Barbara Hall, Jim Holt, David Thompson. Directed by Grant Heslov. Screenplay, Peter Straughan, inspired by Jon Ronson's 2004 book.

Lyn Cassady - George Clooney
Bill Django - Jeff Bridges
Bob Wilton - Ewan McGregor
Larry Hooper - Kevin Spacey
Todd Nixon - Robert Patrick
Gen. Hopgood - Stephen Lang
Gus Lacey - Stephen Root
Maj. Jim Holtz - Glenn Morshower
Mohammad Daash - Waleed Zuaiter
Debora - Rebecca Mader

A serendipitous marriage of talent in which all hearts seem to beat as one, "The Men Who Stare at Goats" takes Jon Ronson's book about "the apparent madness at the heart of U.S. military intelligence" and fashions a superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game. Recalling many similar pics, from "Dr. Strangelove" to "Three Kings," and the screwy so-insane-it-could-be-true illogic of "Catch-22," this is upscale liberal movie-making with a populist touch, in Coen brothers style. Enthusiastic welcome at Venice, likely to be echoed at Toronto, should translate into friendly biz Stateside in November.

Coming in at a tight, well-paced 93 minutes, Grant Heslov's second feature -- after his little-seen anti-corporate golf comedy, "Par 6" (2002) -- clearly benefits from his close working relationship with star George Clooney, following their writing collaboration on "Good Night, and Good Luck." It also benefits from the dense but pacey screenplay by Brit playwright Peter Straughan, whose only prior credit was the equally little-seen 2007 comedy "Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution."

"Goats" is officially "inspired" by Ronson's book, which accompanied a three-part docu series, shown on Blighty's Channel 4 in late 2004, called "Crazy Rulers of the World," tracing some of the U.S. military's more outre ideas for policing the world, terrorism in particular. Straughan's screenplay takes many of the stories from the book -- apparently true, per Ronson, who's made a career from recounting "true tales of everyday craziness" -- and, as a way into the material, invents the character of a small-time, Ann Arbor, Mich.-based journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who's desperate to get into Iraq at the time of the Bush invasion.

After a comically cautionary intertitle ("More of this is true than you would believe") and an opening gag (repeated, with a variation, at the end) that immediately sets the tone, the first reel is thick with info and time shifts from the present (starting in fall 2002) back to the early '80s, which are a tad difficult to digest on first viewing.

In a nutshell, Wilton, assigned to interview Gus Lacey (Stephen Root), an apparent wacko who claims he has special psychic powers, stumbles across an even crazier story: Back in the '80s, the government had a top-secret unit of "psychic spies" who were trained to kill animals by staring at them. The most gifted of the group, says Lacey, was a certain Lyn Cassady.

Wilton heads for the Middle East in spring 2003, looking for a good war story. Stuck in Kuwait City, he bumps into "Skip" (Clooney), who initially claims to be an Arkansas trashcan salesman but is actually Cassady, who's been reactivated and is on a super-secret black-op mission to Iraq.

As the two bond, and Wilton persuades Cassady to take him along, it's clear Cassady's elevator stops well short of the top floor. Claiming to be a "remote viewer," "Jedi warrior" and several other things in between, Cassady fills Wilton in on the formation 20 years earlier of the New Earth Army, brainchild of a Vietnam vet-turned-New Age hippie, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, with goatee and pigtail).

In one sequence straight out of the Joseph Heller playbook, the U.S. military decided to adopt Django's New Earth manual, written with liberal doses of LSD, as a new template for ways of policing the globe. "We must be the first superpower to have super powers," exhorts Django, setting up a squad of psychics he dubs "warrior monks."

As the pic flip-flops between flashbacks illustrating Cassady's narrative and the present time, the pair get lost in the desert, kidnapped and traded by terrorists, and then lost again in the desert. Meanwhile, the backstory progresses to a point where one new member, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), tried to sabotage the NEA, prepping the movie for its acidly funny climax.

Incredibly dense screenplay traverses not only 20 years of U.S. military abitions, starting in the Reagan era, but also provides its own riffs on such public scandals as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. What saves it from getting dramatically tripped up by its own populist grandstanding are the leading perfs, which motor the movie far more than the messages.

As the completely nuts Cassady, Clooney anchors the movie in a beautifully calibrated demo of comic timing and sheer physical presence. More than just his nebbish straight man, McGregor has some of the best lines, slicing through Clooney's utter self-conviction with a handful of well-chosen words. Bridges, channeling "The Big Lebowski," fits Django like a glove, and Spacey's appearance midway adds some welcome tartness to all the New Age weirdness.

Robert Elswit's beautifully composed widescreen lensing of New Mexico's deserts (standing in for Iraq) and Puerto Rico (repping Vietnam and other locations) is aces, without dominating the characters. Other tech credits, including Tatiana S. Riegel's smoothly succinct editing, are top drawer.

End crawl stresses that though some characters are based on real people (the New Earth Army was reportedly the idea of a certain Col. Jim Channon), the movie is a work of fiction. Yeah, right.
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Trailer for "The Men Who Stare At Goats"

Because really, is there anything more awesome than seeing Jeff "The Dude" Bridges rocking a braided ponytail while in an Army jumpsuit? I think not.