THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
Directed by Grant Heslov
Produced by George Clooney, Heslov & Paul Lister
Written by Peter Straughan, based on the book by Jon Ronson
Released by Overture Films
USA. 95 min. Rated R
With George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey & Stephen Lang 
 

The Men Who Stare at Goats has just about everything going for it. There’s an immensely talented cast, one of the more compelling non-fiction subjects in recent memory, and an instant path to relevance via the ever-deepening quagmire in Iraq. But like so many other desert excursions, somewhere along the way things get out of hand.

The movie takes a look at the scattered soldiers of the New Earth Army, the military’s real-life attempt at channeling the New Age daydreams of the ’70s into a military force to be reckoned with. Along the way, they grow their hair out, learn yoga, and, yes, stare at goats, before ending up in the middle of the Iraqi desert engaged in what can best be described as “bad craziness.” It’s quite a yarn, and the vast majority of it seems to be true, but the resulting film keeps a little too much of the gee-whiz tone of long-form journalism and adds too little commentary on what it all might mean.

What are we to make of George Clooney’s Lyn Cassady, for instance? A yoga-practicing ex-CIA operative convinced of his own superpowers, he’s funny, blindly energetic, and the de facto center of the movie. Unfortunately, most of the laughs he elicits are cheap shots at Cassady’s shaggy pursuits and unflappable New Age code. He’s so delusional that the jokes don’t resonate, and when the film tries to pivot into more serious matters, there’s nothing to take seriously. Cassady’s a ridiculous person doing ridiculous things, and there isn’t enough pathos or redemption to make him anything more than that.

When the subject matter takes a spin through the harsh realities of Gulf War II, including torture, the bottom of the film falls out. Having spent an hour mocking the “peaceful warrior” training, the film tries to take it seriously and fails. All we get are half-hearted Gilliamisms, setting anti-establishment goofiness against a drab military routine. In the face of genuine horror, it rings hollow. Is the problem with Iraq that the soldiers aren't wacky enough?

There’s a genuine culture clash at the heart of the New Earth Army, a sloppy confluence of spiritually curious soldiers and the wide-eyed, half-empty promises of spiritual fulfillment that have flooded into the American subculture in the wake of the antiwar movement. It’s no small miracle that the two sides are able to come together—especially since they were hissing at each other not too many years before. But The Men Who Stare at Goats has only a passing interest in either the military or non-Western religions. Jeff Bridges’s long-haired hippie lieutenant should be a tragic man out of time, torn apart by the short-sighted cultural divisions of the day. Instead, he spends most of the film as a single punch line—the hippie soldier—repeated as often as possible. As anyone who’s actually spent time with soldiers can tell you, these contradictions are not all that rare. If only the film could stop laughing for long enough to look a little deeper. Russell Brandom
November 6, 2009