The Men who Stare at Goats

Feb 03, 2010
By Michael Litvinsky

Director: Grant Heslow

Based on a book by Jon Ronson, enriched by four first-class Hollywood stars and nibbling on the subject of the U.S. military – a theme giving comedy writers so much space for maneuver – you can not even imagine that ‘The Men who Stare at Goats’ could still have been more dynamic, energetic and funny. It appears that the film is a tragi-comic tale of good persevering over evil; the only thing is, there is probably too much tragedy in it.

Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a reporter at a small newspaper in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who finds himself recently cast aside by his wife and in need of distraction, if not complete rebirth. In a desperate attempt to find both, he runs off to Kuwait City to become a military reporter where he, rather accidentally, meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former Special Ops military man. Lyn claims to be psychic, trained in the special U.S. Military unit ‘Earth Army.’ Still not being able to take Lyn seriously, Bob decides to follow him in his journey, which leads to a series of several unfortunate and sometimes funny events. Probably the greatest minus of the film is that, despite its remote duration, it still gets a little long-spun in the middle. Luckily, this is all easily compensated for with a tremendous finale.

It is hard to call The Men who Stare at Goats an indie flick with such a starry cast taking part in it. Still, something in this movie savors of the underground. It is hard to tell whether it’s the depression of the main character, or the slow development of the events, nevertheless, it makes the movie a little bit different from all the others.
The movie is not a masterpiece, nor is it a cinematographic revelation of any kind. On the other hand, the movie has its moments.         

Now showing in Latvia and Estonia

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