Movie review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

by John P. Meyer

Incredibly, there seems to be a factual basis for the story behind The Men Who Stare at Goats. Rumors and assertions that the Pentagon conducted experiments into the possible military applications of remote viewing and psychokinesis appear in the mainstream press as early as 1984. And then Jon Ronson wrote a book about it, from which the screenplay for this movie derives.

Regardless of how much of the story is based on actual events (we're supposing -- nay, scrying -- very little of it), Grant Heslov's war-themed screwball comedy of a film is as much fun to watch as a military lab full of wooly mammals. Maybe more.

Heslov has a long history of collaborating in various capacities with George Clooney (actor/producer on Leatherheads; writer/producer on Good Night, and Good Luck; producer on the forthcoming The American), and for this, Heslov's first directorial effort, Clooney signed on to star. (He also co-produces.) Clooney's Lyn Cassady character is one of the most accomplished of the Army's secret cadre of psychic spies, referring to himself as a "Jedi Warrior."

Which leads to a good deal of other cute little Star Wars references -- appropriate on another level because Clooney's co-star is Ewan McGregor, who famously played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episodes I - III.

McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a small-burgh newspaper reporter who stumbles upon what might be the biggest story of his career when he goes to the home of a local psychic (Stephen Root as Gus Lacey) and -- after wading through the dreck of the fellow's improbable predictions -- hears the tale of the now-defunct government-sponsored psi-ops unit. It's a tale he can scarcely credit.

It's only later -- after splitting with his wife and flying off heroically to cover the Iraq War -- that Wilton makes contact with the now-retired Lyn Cassady. At least, Cassady claims to be retired, posing as a salesman of some sort of agricultural implements or other. He (Cassady) is about to dismiss Wilton as a civilian dweeb until he notices the doodle that Wilton's been scribbling on his notepad as they've conversed: It's the old eye in the pyramid, and it matches the one tattooed onto Cassady's chest.

Thus is Wilton taken under Cassady's wing and into his confidence. The lion's share of the film from this point plays like a road picture, with Cassady and Wilton making their difficult way from Kuwait across the border into Iraq and thence to a secret location where Cassady has a destiny to fulfill.

In the course of their journey (which is punctuated by a hostage misadventure and meetings with various clueless, heavily-armed units of paramilitary contractors), Lyn tells Bob all about the history of the New Earth Army (as the psychic corps was designated) and its founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Django was a grunt in Vietnam who, on the first day of his deployment in Indian Country, experiences a semi-mystical revelation involving his fellow soldiers' effectiveness on the battlefield. Since he is shortly thereafter shot in the chest, he has plenty of time to flesh out the revelation and its correlatives while recovering in the hospital.

What results is a treatise called the New Earth Army Manual, whose far out tenets Django presents to a group of army brass. One of these men -- Brigadier General Dean Hopgood (Stephen Lang, who impressed in Public Enemies and will soon appear prominently in Avatar) -- proves eagerly acceptant of Django's wild hypotheses. Thus is born the rainbow ops unit around which the story revolves.

(An episode involving General Hapgood actually opens the film, with him attempting to focus his psychic and biophysical energies to the point where he can walk through a wall. Lang unleashes his steely blue gaze to good effect, but will it be enough to allow his atoms to pass unhindered through those of the barrier seperating him from the adjoining room?)

As Bob comes to learn through various anecdotes and occurrences during their journey, Lyn's paranormal abilities aren't all they're cracked up to be. His "sparkly eye" treatment of their Iraqi captors, for instance, proves to have no effect on the way they are handled in captivity. Nor do his efforts to psychically discourage their trade to a more deadly-looking band of locals seem to be working out.

But neither, Bob discovers, is it all utter horsecrap: Lyn really can predict the outcome of a coin toss, over and over again. He really can bust up clouds by simply concentrating on them. He actually does seem to have dialed in to some sort of extra-physical power source.

Though he succeeds in busting up the clouds -- a wild talent of questionable utility, given their desert surroundings -- Lyn can't seem to keep their truck on the road, and ends up crashing into the only boulder in dozens of miles. "Must have gotten a little bi-locational there," he says.

The background narrative of the New Earth Army's history takes a dark side turn when Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) joins the unit. Larry, who seems to have no aptitude whatsoever for remote viewing, becomes jealous of Lyn's established ability and threatens to derail the entire psi-ops enterprise in a fit of pique. What he succeeds in doing (through an act of malicious and potentially deadly sabotage) is to have Django brought up on charges and ejected from the program. A newly-directed initiative is instituted under the skeptical command of General Holtz (Dallas native Glenn Morshower). Under this regime, the touchy-feely new age aspects of the New Earth Army curriculum (such as dancing) are dispensed with, and the full-on psychic goat-killing experiments commence.

The hilarious shenanigans chronicled in the movie are accompanied by a restrained original score from Rolfe Kent, along with one extremely unrestrained period tune: Boston's More Than A Feeling -- which is still stuck in my brain's playback mechanism several days after seeing the film.

It's great to see Jeff Bridges playing a role for which he seems so well suited (i.e., aging hippie/slacker/mystic). Kudos are due to the makeup artists and hair stylists who allowed both his character and the others to age (and de-age!) so gracefully over the course of this decade-hopping narrative.

Tucked somewhere under the hospital-cornered topsheet of this script is a good deal of social and political commentary, but it remains comfortably overlain by the eccentric characterizations and hairbrained antics on obvious display. The film's agenda -- if not exactly hidden -- is nevertheless comfortably camouflaged.

The final scene -- involving another attempt at wall-breaching, this time by an older, wiser Bob Wilton -- puts a jubilant capper on this fun-filled and slyly-satirical entertainment.

You go, Bob!