‘Goats’ struggles to be giddy

Men Who Stare at Goats

Reporter Bob Wilton is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady, a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. Now, the program's founder, Bill Django, has gone missing and Cassady's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Bob impulsively decides to accompany him on the search. When the pair tracks Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper, the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers. In order to survive this wild adventure, Bob will have to outwit an enemy he never thought possible.

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By Roger Moore

“Wacky” isn’t George Clooney’s strong suit as an actor. But it’s always at least amusing to watch the suave, silky leading man let his freak flag fly.

It flutters and flaps in “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” an odder-than-odd farce about a small-town reporter (Ewan McGregor) who stumbles across the graduates of an Army “psychic” soldier program, self-described “Jedi Warriors” taught to fly, walk through walls, and practice mind control and “cloud bursting” — concentrating on a cloud until it breaks up, then taking the credit for it.

And goat staring? That’s where these “remote viewing” psychics glare at a hapless farm animal until its heart stops.

Bob Wilton (McGregor) is incredulous when he hears of this unit, even more so when he stumbles across its most famous member, Lyn Cassady (Clooney). Lyn, who goes by Skip, reluctantly regales Bob with tales of the glorious “Jedi” Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), whose battlefield epiphany in Vietnam sent him on a spirit quest that led to founding this New Age “New Earth Army.”

As Bob and Skip stumble into Iraq in the opening days of the war, Skip employs his training with daft conviction and Bob’s jaw drops further by the minute as they have accidents, endure kidnapping and run-ins with Skip’s New Earth Army nemesis (Kevin Spacey in Evil/Smart Kevin Spacey mode).

This movie from Clooney crony Grant Heslov (he scripted “Good Night, and Good Luck”) struggles to be as giddy as its irreverent story and screwball characters promise. The laugh-out-loud moments and nutty characters (Bridges is perfect) strain to find each other in the absolute reality of Skip and Bob’s Iraqi Odyssey. Making the satire here funny, that “more of this film is true than you’d care to believe” claim in the opening credits, is difficult because, really, what’s so hard to believe? Cracks about this being a program the astrology-believing Ronald Reagan “protected” seem straight out of a Reagan biography.