THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (2009) 3/10

Baffling misfire wastes the talents of an impressive cast, especially the main quartet of Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. Adapted, very awkwardly, from Jon Ronson's non-fiction book of the same title – about the US military's wackier experiments in developing and deploying psychic powers – it concocts a flimsy, entirely fictional narrative in which an implausibly clueless journalist (McGregor) stumbles across a maverick psy-ops veteran (top-billed Clooney) while attempting to cover the Iraq war.
   Director Heslov, whose previous collaboration with Clooney yielded the excellent Good Night and Good Luck (2005; Heslov co-wrote and produced), aims for comic terrain somewhere between Three Kings, Burn After Reading and Buffalo Soldiers, but misses by miles. The picture always looks good thanks to Robert Elswit's cinematography, and the four stars do occasionally bring a little bit of life to Peter Straughan's uninspired screenplay (it's regrettable that he couldn't write a single substantial role for a female character.) But the occasional mild chuckle is much more than one should expect from such a promising premise and such high-calibre talents - no matter how forcefully Rolfe Kent's intrusive, generic score seeks to persuade us that we're watching some kind of zany, subversive laugh-fest. 
   The casting of McGregor (American accent serviceable at best) is a particularly distracting blunder, given the copious talk of how Clooney and co were intended to become 'American Jedi.' If you want to see how that particular concept can be turned into an entertainingly fresh and amusing movie, seek out David Twohy's recent, cruelly underappreciated A Perfect Getaway – a picture evidently hamstrung at the box-office by its lack of "marquee" cast-members. As The Men Who Stare At Goats once again proves, however, movie stars alone do not a movie make.

Neil Young
6th November 2009

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
3/10
USA/UK 2009
directed by Grant Heslov
93m (BBFC)
[6/28]

seen at Cineworld Boldon, 6th November 2009 (paid  £4.70)