The Men Who Stare at Goats

Tagline: "No Goats, No Glory."

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a small-town journalist desperately trying to impress his estranged wife, travels to the Middle East to cover the Iraq War. On his way, he runs into Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who reveals that he's a psychic soldier on a secret mission. Turns out, as Cassady explains, that in the 1980s the Army trained a whole unit - the New Earth Army - to use new age strategies to fight the wars of the future, led by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). But, alas, a power struggle ensues with one trooper, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), fracturing the group. Using his psychic mind and intuition, Cassady leads himself and Wilton to a secret base in the middle of the Iraqi desert. Apparently, after the New Earth Army was dismantled, Hooper founded a Blackwater-style group and is making major money launching psychic warfare. Ultimately, Cassady and Django decide to sabotage Hooper's operation by spiking all the food with LSD and then they go riding off into the sunset, never to be seen again and leaving Wilton to try to report the strange tale.

This movie is good. Not great, but good. But, if it isn't already evident, the movie is hard to explain in conventional terms as well. It isn't quite fiction, but it isn't quite non-fiction either. (The opening title states "More of this is true than you would believe.") For a movie that seems to drag on at points, it is surprisingly short.

The hazy gray middle area that this movie occupies is ultimately what held it back. Cassady is so strange, crazy, and off-the-wall that I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to laugh at his absurdist ideas or to pity him for his disconnection from reality. At times the movie is artistic journalism, self-discovery journey, road trip, social commentary, and comedy. None of these are necessarily exclusive from one another, but too many of them packed into just shy of 90 minutes pulled my mind around too much. There were even just a few too many big-name actors thrown into such a short script. (And, I'm not complaining, but it seems like Jeff Bridges can now only play "the washed-up ________ trying to redeem himself." Insert "hippie" for this movie, "country singer" for "Crazy Heart," and, probably, video game programmer for the new "Tron.")

Despite my final confusion, I can easily say that I enjoyed watching the movie. All of the leads - Clooney, McGregor, Bridges, Spacey - were fantastic, dynamic characters. The rich colors of the sets and scenes gave a sense of being just on the edge of reality, without falling away to fantasy. The best comparison I can think of is that this movie is like a grilled hamburger - good on its own, but a few more spices could have made it much better.

Directed by: Grant Heslov

Written by: Peter Straughan (screenplay) and Jon Ronson (book)