The Men Who Stare at Goats

Something is always lost when a book is adapted for the screen, but rarely is that something all semblance of entertainment value. Ostensibly constructed from the research into CIA psychic programs recounted by Jon Ronson in his book of the same name, “The Men Who Stare At Goats” is an attempted comedy and would-be political satire that fails on just about every conceivable level. For Ronson, a factual foray into the paranoia and government-funded absurdities of the Cold War era made for excellent non-fiction fodder. Presented as a film with one-note characters and only the barest discernible plot, the material is, to put it charitably, less engaging.

Judged purely on its script’s coherence and the water-treading performances of its A-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—whose role in “Revenge of the Sith,” another comedy about mental powers, no doubt prepared him for this one—plays Bob Wilton, the reporter who ill-advisedly tags along with Clooney into American-occupied Iraq. Rounding out our star-studded ensemble is Kevin Spacey as Larry Hooper, Cassady’s rival from their training days, in what is essentially a cameo role.

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 whose people he cares little about—but it’s a series of aimless clichés that don’t even add up to a clichéd conclusion.

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 or so lines just as well, and for a fraction of the price. And Jeff Bridges—who most forget was also an Oscar nominee for “The Contender”—is just painful as Clooney’s drugged-out mentor, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Django. The use of the actors’ names here and not those of their characters is more than mere convention; the people who inhabit “The Men Who Stare at Goats” are so simplistic that there is no chance of the actors becoming subsumed in their roles—Clooney is clearly Clooney, McGregor is McGregor, and Spacey remains Spacey.

Scenery in the movie consists of a 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 its cast when handed serviceable material. Thankfully, these moments are all available in the movie’s trailer, saving viewers a valuable 90 minutes of runtime.

It is a 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 to laugh because we don’t want to be caught as the only one to say we didn’t get it. Don’t fall for it.