Review: The Men Who Stare At Goats

George Clooney has a life-time pass in my books. Even if he starts making sub-par films and working with low-rent directors in his later years, I’ll still be there. And this is because in my first years as a serious film fan, starting in 1998 and well into the early-aughts, Clooney was in at least one interesting, intelligent movie a year. Since then his track record speaks for itself: good movie after good movie, with even the clunkers being interesting and worth a look (see Intolerable Cruelty and The Good German). Sadly, The Men Who Stare At Goats is one of these clunkers – interesting and worth a look, funny and completely original, but ultimately a movie I wanted to like more than I did.

My biggest problem with the movie is probably its tone. I think it’s too goofy and too broad, and especially to the point where, when it tries for real drama, for some significance, it completely fails. There’s a quiet moment mid-way through the movie where Clooney apologizes to a kind Iraqi man for the American arrogance and ignorance of two US security companies whose rivalry resulted in a street fight in an Iraqi market square. I didn’t catch the sincerity of this moment until it had completely passed. Similarly, I don’t think the emotional climax of the film, where Clooney finds a kind of closure-cum-redemption for his having once killed a goat with his mind, works as effectively as I think the filmmakers—and the heavy-handed music—intended. I think this film would have been better suited as a comedic drama then a dramatic comedy. A more serious look at goofy, new-agey military programs, with a subtler comedic approach, would have made for a more balanced, more significant movie.

But problems aside, it’s still a good movie. It has quite a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, and Clooney and McGregor are incredibly likable in their respective roles. In fact, everyone is good here, including the always reliable Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. And the film is a complete original; there aren’t many movies that cover this same territory. All of which only accentuates for me just how much of a shame it is that the film doesn’t come together more than it actually does. And anyway, I've still got two more Clooney films to look forward to in the coming weeks, with The Fantastic Mr. Fox out this week and Up In The Air in theaters in December...