The Men Who Stare at Goats

Flat characters and disjointed story drive a would-be excellent comedy into mediocrity.


The Men Who Stare at Goats has some extremely funny moments. Too bad they are sandwiched in between a plot that is muffled and incohesive. Well, when I say plot, what I really mean is story; this film lacks any real presence of a solid story.



When Bob Wilton’s (Ewan McGregor) wife leaves him for another man, a one-armed man, he decides to show her what’s up by joining the army as a journalist. While in Iraq, Wilton runs into Lyn Cassady(George Clooney) who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's “New Earth Army,” a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions. Cassady claims to be out of retirement and on a new mission for the unit and agrees to let Wilton tag along. The movie cuts between the present with flashbacks of the rise and fall of New Earth Army, which was formed by hippie-soldier Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). The unit does extremely well until recruit Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) brings it down out of jealousy over Wilton’s success as its top psych-soldier. That back story leads to an intersection with the present mission by Wilton and Cassady, and plenty of LSD and gags along the way.

The characters are memorable and they do really funny things, but for what? Is this the story of a man trying to find himself and his destiny after being played for a fool by his wife? Or is it a story of redemption, after a soldier uses his powers for what he sees as dark purposes rather than light? Or even still, it may be a parody of Star Wars, or even a parody of our armed forces’ tactics used for the war on terror. Whatever the story, it lacked focus. Not to say the film was all bad. It contains many moments of flat-out hilarious gags. Every so often those gags seemed forced, and they would have maybe worked better with a darker tone to the picture. But the main complaint is simply with the simple reason why movies are good: story.