The Men Who Stare At Goats

Of the five films currently sitting in top spot in the Irish box office, three are based on books, and that’s before taking into account the second instalment of the Twilight series, which just opened yesterday. Wikipedia has helpfully compiled the highest-grossing movies of the last decade; eight of the top ten are adaptations of books (or comics, in the case of The Dark Knight, which are just as valid a literary form, if you ask me). Books are obviously Good Business at the minute.

Based on the book of the same name, The Men Who Stare At Goats is unlikely to make a late run for inclusion in the list of big money blockbuster book adaptations. This might be because it doesn’t include enough vampires/boy wizards/orcs/all of the above. It might also be because, as an early title slide warns us, all too many of the events it portrays have their basis in fact.

Ewan McGregor stars as journalist Bob Wilton who embarks on a journey through Gulf War II Iraq with off-beat ex-military man Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former member of what the US Army referred to as the New Earth Army. Led by Jeff Bridges in Sergeant “The Dude” mode, this Cold War-era group formed with the aim of creating super psychic soldiers capable of remote viewing, walking through walls and killing goats by staring at them. Now, with the group long dissolved and gone their separate ways, Cassady has — so he claims — been psychically tasked with one final mission…

It’s actually difficult to pick out the made-up strands of narrative from the stuff that’s rooted in fact. Much of the detail relating to the New Earth Army and their methodologies is supposedly true, and the attempts of both the American and Russian military to investigate psychic powers have been well documented. Naturally, the film plays all of this for laughs — and quite rightly too — and while there are plenty of funny moments that juxtapose military men and New Age hippie-trippiness, there is a slight feeling of an opportunity missed in terms of biting satire. Maybe the subject matter is just too ridiculous to really go for the jugular.

The best of the comedy comes courtesy of Clooney, who is stone-cold brilliant as Lyn Cassady, a man who clearly believes he has a very special gift, might also be on the wrong side of the see-saw of sanity, and is also a disillusioned, burnt-out, and ultimately tragic individual. Spouting New Age mumbo-jumbo military techniques with the utmost sincerity, and completely unafraid to make himself look foolish for the sake of a gag, he’s utterly believable throughout the film, and plays Repressed Crazy almost too convincingly for comfort. There’s also a nicely meta collection of jokes around the codename for the New Earth Army (Jedi) and Ewan McGregor’s presence.

Still, the overall feeling is one of slightness, or inconsequentiality. Which is fine; it’s good fun and it doesn’t outstay its welcome, but it also feels like a film which doesn’t have very much to say about a variety of important topics (military spending, the futility of war, the presence of corporate influences in post-war Iraq…take your pick), and we’ve come to expect more from film-makers of this quality.

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