The Men Who Stare at Goats

Directed by Grant Haslov   Based on a book by Jon Ronson  Screenplay by Peter Straughen

George Clooney is charming and handsome and somewhat popular and rich. But one thing he's not is funny. Not really. Oh he's had his moments, but when he tries to do a full blown comedy like this (or "Leatherheads" or "Burn After Reading" or "return of the Killer Tomatoes") he proves to be less than a superstar.

Of course, its not all his fault. He's just the star. A lot of the blame has to go to the producer. Oops! That's George Clooney too.

The story starts with Ewan MacGregor as Bob Wilton, a reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper. When he loses his wife (hotty Rebecca Mader, the ONLY hot babe in the whole movie) to a one armed editor, he decides to go to Iraq to prove himself or something. There he meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney) who was someone a crazy guy once told him about. Lyn reveals himself to be a former Psi soldier, a veteran of an Army program run by Major Bill Django (Jeff Bridges playing a peace/love hippy type again) to develop the mind and psychological powers to defeat enemies much like a Jedi mind trick. At one point he recalls how he used his mind to stop a goat's heart.

McGregor, who played young Obi-Wan in the "Star Wars" prequels now has his role reversed and is the inexperienced student learning from the Jedi master. The first five or six times they make the Jedi reference is kind of funny. By the 10th or 12th time, the humor kind of wears off.

Anyway Cassady and Wilton make their way through the Iraqi desert (reminding me much of the misfire "Ishtar") with absolutely no chemistry together until they come on a evil military contractor's base where another former Jedi soldier named Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) has revived the unit, including bringing back Major Django. Hooper was the one who tempted Cassady to the dark side in order to kill that goat. Now Cassady knows he must stop Hooper at all costs. This leads to a "wacky" scene where all the soldiers on the base without their knowledge get high on LSD. The scene that results is reminiscent of a similar scene in the Otto Preminger bomb "Skidoo" in which prison guards get high on LSD allowing Jackie Gleason to escape in a balloon. Both scenes are remarkably unfunny.

With stars like Clooney, McGregor, Spacey, Bridges, Steven Lang, Robert Patrick and that guy who played the trusted secret service agent on "24" in the film, it does have a lot of star firepower. And it isn't just another formula cookie cutter film. It is different.

It's just not funny.

Bottom line is I think the actual men who stare at goats were probably more entertained than the audience that stared at "The Men Who Stared at Goats".