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Baaad 'Men Who Stare at Goats' not worth a look
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OVERTURE FILMS
Overture Films should have anticipated that "The Men Who Stare at Goats" would be compared to, well, staring at goats.
The jumbled mess of a movie lacks anything that resembles a coherent plot and, as a result, presents one of the most boring rides exhibited on the big screen this fall. It is the kind of material that works great in book form but simply cannot sustain a 90-minute motion picture. There is certainly no shortage of ideas. Those ideas just fail to actualize.
Perhaps the filmmakers wanted to keep "The Men Who Stare at Goats" believable enough to still be able to slap the "based on true events" sticker on it. Or maybe they wanted to retain the tone of Jon Ronson's nonfiction novel. Either way, the audience suffers the consequences. By the time the climax comes around bringing all the characters together in one place, that audience will be more than ready for the end credits.
While searching for his next big story, reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a man who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. Military unit in “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” According to Cassady, the government has been training a legion of soldiers in the psychic arts.
Cassady is no longer active but the kidnapping of the program's founder Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) has called him back to the mission field. Wilton tags along on the search, which eventually leads to a camp led by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey).
The amount of story that can be considered the truth may be an interesting factoid to some moviegoers but most will be unconcerned with such a frivolous thing. Its triviality is only amplified by the small number of unbelievable events that occur during the course of the flick. For a movie boasting the inclusion of paranormal elements, "The Men Who Stare at Goats" sure is average.
Aside from its peculiar title, the movie is painfully normal. Sure, Clooney bursts a cloud with his mind. And, as the title suggests, he kills a goat simply by staring at it. But that is it - and everyone has already seen that in the film's trailer. The rest is a predictable ride through the pages of Ronson's book.
The least director Grant Heslov and screenwriter Peter Straughan could have done was make it an eventful one. However hardly anything actually "happens" in the flick. In fact, action is replaced with dialogue. Most of said dialogue comes in the form of narrative back story. Even a potentially fruitful incident involving Cassady and Wilton getting kidnapped by a group of terrorists is short-lived.
Yet even the lack of action is not the primary problem with "The Men Who Stare at Goats." Rather, it is a lack of focus. Jumping from one plot point to another - half of which are considered back story - and winding up in one of the most unoriginal conclusions of the year, this movie is an enigmatic mess. It is nothing more than a collection of fair ideas that were never even executed.
As far as the flick's other potential assets, some critics have called the material in "The Men Who Stare at Goats" as dark humor. However, that would imply the material could actually be considered humor. Although there are a few sporadic laughs to be had by Clooney's outrageous performance, the majority of the movie falls flat. You just sort of stare at the screen and try with all your mental might to make it go away.
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