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Movie review: 'Goats' is fun, but the dots fail to connect
Overture Films
Delivered with goofy gusto by George Clooney and his co-stars, "The Men Who Stare At Goats" is fitful, undemanding, and ultimately lightweight humor.
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Published: November 4, 2009
Updated: 11/04/2009 07:53 pm
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A fun tone is undermined by disjointed storytelling in George Clooney's "The Men Who Stare at Goats," and it all starts with the disclaimer that opens the movie: "More of this is true than what you might imagine."
This wry comment serves as a nod and a wink from the filmmakers, a license to do what they will to Jon Ronson's amusing nonfiction account of the U.S. military's hush-hush research into psychic warfare and espionage.
What Clooney's producing partner, first-time director Grant Heslov, and his colleagues come up with is a hit-and-miss fictional narrative on which to string some of the brightest anecdotes Ronson uncovered about efforts to create warrior monks who try to walk through walls or glare animals to death.
The priceless opening scene — re-creating the start of Ronson's book as a general attempts to displace his molecules and run through his office wall — promises a "Catch-22" or Strangelove-style satire.
But the book is a loosely connected journey from one absurdity to the next, sprouting offshoots and asides, great stand-alone burlesques and dramas that don't lend themselves to a cohesive film.
The dramatic spine developed by screenwriter Peter Straughan jettisons much of the book's darkest and most-compelling moments — a CIA murder plot, psychic warfare links to the Branch Davidians and the Heaven's Gate cult suicides — in favor of a gag-laden jaunt stretching from Vietnam through the war on terror.
Delivered with goofy gusto by Clooney and co-stars Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey, "Goats" is fitful, undemanding, and ultimately lightweight humor.
In fits and starts, director Heslov captures a lot of the drolly incredulous spirit of the book. It's just too bad the dots don't connect better.
MOVIE REVIEW
'The Men Who Stare At Goats' **½
MOVIE BOARD RATING: R; language, some drug content and brief nudity
STARS: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Root
DIRECTOR: Grant Heslov
PLOT SUMMARY: Members of an experimental U.S. military unit are rumored to fight wars with psychic powers -- reading the enemy's thoughts, passing through solid walls and killing a goat simply by staring at it.
RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes
ON THE WEB: www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com
Movies are rated on a scale of zero to four stars.
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