Film Review:The Men Who Stare At Goats

The Men Who Stare At Goats came out on November 6, 2009 with critics left and right giving it both positive and negative critiques. A star-studded cast spearheaded by Ewan McGregor and George Clooney deliver a surprisingly underwhelming film hastily put together by novice Director, Grant Heslov. The film had redeeming qualities at times, most notably a great comeback performance by Jeff Bridges who harks back on why people love him, because he's The Dude. Clooney is always a treat on screen and has yet to perform poorly in a film, no matter how terrible it is. Ewan McGregor, however, has been going down a perpetual storm of terrible acting gigs (read: Angels & Demons.)



It's just terribly difficult to get over his forced American accent and even more difficult to believe that he is a small-town reporter from, of all places, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The main premise of the film is interesting enough--a reporter caught up in the crossfire of a seemingly delusional ex-combatant of the New Earth Army, Lyn Cassidy (Clooney) who conveys stories to the reporter alla flashbacks to his time in the New Earth Army with Bill Django (Bridges) as his commanding officer. He recounts the many things they did at Fort Bragg, NC during the post-Vietnam era right at the height of the Cold War. The humor in the film borders on Burn After Reading-esque start-stop hilarity. This combination, however, yields little in way of making an enjoyable film at least.

The end of the film is unusually emotionally charged. A very stark departure from the rest of the film, Men and Goats ties, somewhat loosely, some overreaching arc that unites the paths of Bill Django, Lyn Cassidy, Bob (McGregor) and a terribly developed villain Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey.) Similarly, the end of the film harks on some strong images of recent Iraqi conflicts (read: Abu Ghraib and PMC conflicts).

All in all, The Men Who Stare at Goats is a very poorly directed film about a topic as ranged as this. The inability to mix humor into something as recent as the ongoing war in Iraq creates mixed emotions from the intelligent viewer. But hey, what's to say it won't do well in the Box Office--people continually try to feel cultured by watching obscure films by virtue of their having big name Hollywood A-Listers.

Luis' Rating: 4/10--Skip it!