Trippy, Hippy and very Dippy

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2009)

This film is one hippy dippy trip. The train leaves from Optimism Junction; journeying full steam ahead through Laughter Lane; then it chugs along comfortably through Madcap Mount. You will be awestruck at the scenery but after about an hour you'll stall at Boredom Boulevard and be held there for a bit too long. You will then pootle along Bizarre Broadway and all of a sudden you'll be launched to the ultimate destination, Unexpected Parkway. Your trip is now complete: you have just watched 'The Men Who Stare at Goats'.
Okay, so it's got its good points: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor and Jeff Bridges to name a few. The chemistry between them works very well. McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a hapless journalist who is trying to prove to his estranged wife that he's not a loser. George Clooney plays Lyn Cassady, an ex-soldier on a secret mission to Iraq. Lyn has psychic powers and has devoured new age philosophy as if his life depended on it. Jeff Bridges is Bill Django, the ultimate guru who trains the soldiers in all things mystic.
So Bob tags on to Lyn in pursuit of a hot story and winds up in Iraq with one deluded dude. The realisation of this is rammed home when they are kidnapped by Al-Qaeda terrorists and Lyn suggests astral flight as a means of escape. Earth to loony Clooney. However, Bob does end up writing about the New Earth Army soldiers who drink wheatgrass for breakfast, meditate at lunchtime and pick up sacks with unusual parts of their body come nightfall. It's all a bit surreal. The kookiness climaxes when Lyn demonstrates that he can kill a goat just by an intense stare from those night-time eyes. I can think of worse ways to go.
Jeff Bridges has never looked so becoming even though he is sporting a long blonde plait that would make a German hausfrau proud. His anthem Earth Prayer is a really catchy number and delivered with such panache: "Mother Earth my life support system as a soldier I must drink your blue water live inside your red clay and eat your green skin." Eat your green skin? I hope Princess Fiona isn't listening.
Kevin Spacey plays Larry Hooper who's also a psychic soldier but a mean one. It's an interesting turn for Spacey who doesn't get much screen time but he's not known for nasty roles and isn't very convincing as a meanie. No amount of glaring can harden his soft face but I can see why he took the role.
All in all, this film's a bit difficult to pigeon-hole. If you crossed Ansel Adams with a whole lot of silliness, this is what you would get. It has beautiful cinematography; sophisticated camera work; and beautiful shots of the desert. It's so stylish, you almost expect Lawrence of Arabia to charge across the dunes. Instead you get Lyn and Bob bickering about the joys of soya: new age nutter meets hacked-off hack. The friction between the two main characters works but the plot is just a wee bit dull in the middle. Overall, the expression 'mad as a box of (organic) frogs' springs to mind.