The Men Who Stare At Goats ( 2009 )

Starring: Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, and Ewan McGregor

Directed By Grant Heslov

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/


If you can measure the influence of artists by the number of ill-starred imitations their work inspires, then “The Men Who Stare at Goats” testifies to the glory of the Coen brothers. 

Deploying a goofy George Clooney, a long-haired, Dude-ish Jeff Bridges, and Coen regular Stephen Root, combining an outlandish story with slapstick violence, aiming for a balance of cold-eyed satire and cockeyed whimsy, the film too often feels strained and desperate, a high school musical version, in a way, of something more precisely distilled.  It’s like a movie the Coen boys conceived and then abandoned as too slight.

Director Grant Heslov’s film is based on a non-fiction account of a cold-war era US Army intelligence unit that attempted to use New Age training to create a cadre of super soldiers.  The effort was abandoned, but our protagonist, a journalist played by Ewan McGregor, finds threads of it still informing various operations in today’s Iraq War.

There are moments of levity throughout the film, but it’s made with pedestrian craft and feels more like a set-up and a series of vignettes than a compelling yarn.  Chiefly, it demonstrates just how accomplished the Coens are even when their films seem offhanded and easy.

Overal rating ( * * 1/2 )

-Mr. What?