The two wings of General Clooney's army have got lost in the fog

Rating: 4/10 (4 December 2009)

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is the latest George Clooney production; as with most of the other films which he has produced or directed, this one is essentially a vehicle for his left-wing opinions. It was directed by his business partner Grant Heslov who wrote the script for another Clooney project, "Good Night and Good Luck".
The film is based upon a book by the British journalist Jon Ronson which tells the bizarre but apparently true story of a secret unit within the US Army called the First Earth Battalion which attempted to find military applications for "New Age" philosophies. The title refers to one of the unit's activities- trying to kill goats by staring at them. Other projects included trying to walk through walls, remote viewing and invisibility (not to be confused with camouflage).
The main character is Bob Wilton, a journalist covering the Iraq War in 2003. Wilton stumbles onto a possible scoop when he meets Lyn Cassady, a former Special Forces operator who claims to have been part of the New Earth Army (as the First Earth Battalion is referred to here). In the film it is also referred to as the "Jedi Warriors" after the mystical, quasi-religious warrior-monks in the "Star Wars" films. Wilton is at first sceptical, but becomes less so as Cassady tells him more about the history of the unit. It was founded in the 1970s by a Vietnam veteran named Bill Django who had taken six years from the Army in order to research various New Age movements. A split developed between the idealistic Django, who wanted to use his unit's powers only for espionage and other non-lethal purposes, and Larry Hooper, one of his recruits who wanted to use New Age teachings to develop new ways of killing. (To continue the "Star Wars" analogy, Hooper can be seen as having, like Darth Vader, gone over to the dark side of the force). Lyn left the unit in a fit of remorse after killing a goat by staring at it, believing that it is wrong to use one's psychic abilities to cause death, even the death of an animal.
Despite the presence of Gorgeous George and several other big names (Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey) and some reasonably good acting, this is not a very good film. It is often difficult to follow exactly what is supposed to be going on, or how far we are supposed to take Cassady's claims at face value. The obvious aim of the film was to satirise the US military, but the problem is that Clooney and Heslov are trying to satirise it from two different positions at the same time, without realising that these positions are quite irreconcilable and therefore cancel one another out. At times the film takes up a vaguely New Age position itself, arguing that what America needs is more of the idealistic, pacific values of the movement and less of the militaristic values of the Larry Hoopers of this world. At other times, however, the film seems to be taking the strictly rationalist position that New Age philosophy is all a load of baloney and that the US Army must be mad if they take such unscientific nonsense seriously.
"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is not nearly as good as "Good Night, and Good Luck". That film has its faults, but it also has its virtues, notably a fine performance from David Strathairn in the central role. Even if one disagrees with Clooney's politics, there can be no doubt that in "Good Night, and Good Luck" he is setting out his position clearly. One cannot say that of "The Men Who Stare at Goats". In military terms what has happened is that the two wings of General Clooney's army have got lost in the fog and started attacking each other, all the time believing that they are in fact inflicting significant damage on the enemy. 4/10