THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS

Many months ago, when this movie was out in the theaters, a friend of mine told me she was going to see it with her boyfriend.  Big stars, previews looked funny...I was eagerly anticipating her thoughts on the film the next day.  Her exact words - "That sucked".  Well.....OK then.....  So it's taken me about 6 months to finally get to see it, and I have to say that while I don't totally agree with her assessment, the movie is definitely not for everyone.

'The Men Who Stare At Goats' stars George Clooney and Ewan McGregor, with help from Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, and is not, in effect, really about goats at all.  Bob Wilton (McGregor) is a down on his luck journalist looking for one big story to get him back into the good graces of his estranged wife, basically to prove his worth as a man.  As a result, he goes into Iraq to cover the war, where he meets Lyn Cassidy (Clooney).  Clooney is an ex-army soldier, who was trained in 'New Earth Army' by his superior officer Bill Django (Bridges).  Through a series of flashbacks, we get to see that The New Earth Army that Django teaches focuses on mind warfare as opposed to physical strength.  The men are being trained to be Jedi's (which is really funny as a running joke in the film, especially as McGregor played Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films).

The men have been trained to 'remote view' other locations to find missing soldiers, see and walk through walls, become invisible, etc...etc....  Wilton believes none of this, and after getting into misadventure after misadventure with Cassidy, has plenty of reason for doubt.  Wilton and Clooney eventually find Django and Hooper (Spacey) working on the same techniques in the remote desert. 

The problem, I think, with the movie is that it fluctuates between being a straight comedy, to a satire, to somewhat of a drama, back to a comedy, and back to a satire.  The movie doesn't culminate as much as crawl to a conclusion. I did find it pretty funny at times, and I suppose it could be categorized as a sort of dark satire.  Oh yeah, and there is some staring at goats, so we got that going for us...which is nice.

Like I said, I didn't hate it, but I can definitely see why someone paying money to see it in a movie theater would be grossly disappointed.  It's a very odd movie, that never really lets you get comfortable with any style of film.  You keep waiting for something to happen that will let you ease into the movie...but it never comes.  I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5, realizing that this isn't for everyone.