The Men Who Stare at Goats **

The Men Who Stare at Goats is littered with top name actors, each of whom have too little to do in a film that lacks a coherent story. The primary character is Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a journalist working in Ann Arbor who decides to go to Iraq to cover the war after his wife leaves him. It’s not so much a death wish or a journalistic ambition as it is a foolhardy gesture to prove to his wife that he’s worth a damn. When Bob arrives, he’s stuck in a hotel in Kuwait for over a month. While sitting in the bar one night, he strikes up a conversation with a man. He quickly finds out this is Lynn Cassady (George Clooney), a name he recognizes from an interview he did with Gus Lacey (Stephen Root) back in Ann Arbor. Lacey told him all about a program in the Army where they were training psychic soldiers—Jedi Warriors—and that Lynn Cassady was one of the best. That’s pretty ironic, though. Bob came halfway round the world and met Lynn by chance?

So Bob and Lynn embark on a journey across the border and danger and hilarity ensues. This story shares equal screen time with a copious amount of flashbacks of how the New Earth Army (Jedi school) came to be in the first place. We meet many strange characters, including the founder of the psychic warriors, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges channeling The Dude). Lynn became Bill’s best student. But there is also Lynn’s nemesis Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), an arrogant and ambitious Jedi (basically a Sith). The dynamic of the characters are traditional, but the structure often convolutes the primary plot with Bob and Lynn in Iraq. The filmmakers wanted everything to neatly converge in the end, but it doesn’t really work. This structure is more fitting for a book, so it’s no surprise the film is based on one.

While everything we learn about the program is interesting, it doesn’t make for a particularly engaging film. There is not much to invest in, character, plot, or otherwise. Sure, there is a handful of laugh out loud moments, but these are few and far between. More often than not, I found myself distracted by Jeff Bridges playing such a similar character to The Dude; I kept chuckling every time the word Jedi was mentioned in front of Ewan McGregor, an actor who played an actual Jedi in three films; and I kept thinking how that other George Clooney movie that takes place during the other Iraq war is much better. I’d rather watch The Big Lebowski, Star Wars, or Three Kings any day.