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 In cinemas Thursday [M]
Director: Grant Heslov
Runtime: 94mins
When director Grant Heslov and screenwriter Peter Straughan were handed the premise for The Men Who Stare At Goats, for a moment they must have been in filmic nirvana. A true story this weird doesn’t come along that often, and in Hollywood’s never ending hunt for a narrative that hasn’t already been told (at least in cinemas), material like this is close to gold.
Based on the account of the same name by journalist Jon Ronson (and somewhat controversially, uncredited research by documentarian John Sargeant), The Men Who Stare At Goats takes a semi-fictionalised look at the US Army’s experiments in alternative combat – namely, “psychic soldiers”. Directionless journo Bob Wilton (Ewan Macgregor) heads to Kuwait in the hope of finding a story in the early days of the Iraq War. Instead he finds Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), an intense and slightly unhinged contractor who informs Wilton that he was once part of the New Earth Army, an actual special forces unit set up by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), a soldier who spent years in the ‘70s researching new age philosophies and returned to the army to create ‘Jedi’ warriors able to utilise skills like invisibility and remote viewing in combat situations. Via flashbacks we see Django’s unusual training techniques being embraced by his long-haired recruits, including the weaselly Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who envies Cassady’s abilities and wants to see the unit take a more aggressive approach. Back in Iraq, the present day Cassady drags Wilton on a “secret mission”, encountering more than a few of the obstacles you’d expect to find in war zones, and testing Wilton’s belief in his companion’s supposed abilities at every turn. But when they find themselves in a US forces base camp, it seems a bigger test of faith is at hand.
Besides the central absurdity of the premise (the military allowing an LSD-soaked hippy to train superhuman soldiers), Heslov and Straughn have a lot of fun with the ‘Jedi’ references around Ewan “Obi Wan” McGregor. The title of film – which comes from Clooney’s character attempting to stop a goat’s heart by staring at it – even gives rise to a chucklesome “Silence Of The Goats” gag. But that’s the film’s main problem given what it eventually attempts to do, which is to become a critique of American military psychological warfare techniques and the influx of private contractors eager to make a quick dollar in Iraq. The satire isn’t harsh enough to really cut to the heart of the matter, and on the flipside the humour is too quirky to make it an out-and-out gut-buster comedy. That said, Bridges and Clooney are both hilarious in their roles, but one can’t help wondering what creators like the Coen Bros. might have done with the material. Even if you have the most unusual story in the world, it won’t be saved by middling execution.
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TOPHER HEALY
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