Movie Reviews

BBC Films

Review in a Hurry: Ditched by his wife, reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) makes a semi-suicidal beeline for Iraq. There he encounters apparent psychic soldier Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who spins a dubious yarn about a special psy-ops program and leads his new compadre into a hippies-versus-soldiers conflict that feels about 40 years too late.

The Bigger Picture: The Men Who Stare At Goats, directed by Clooney pal and former Scorpion King sidekick Grant Heslov, makes a bid for relevance by being based on true events, frequently referencing "Jedi," and set during the early phases of the Iraq war. But it plays like a relic of a bygone time. Perhaps if you're an audience member who can appreciate a good Timothy Leary joke, it'll still work, but if you're currently going "Timothy who?" you really should skip it.

McGregor in particular appears to be a case of stunt-casting. After 16 years in feature films, he still can barely manage a more convincing "American" accent than Arnold Schwarzenegger, and seems to be used here primarily as the butt of all the jokes about psychic soldiers calling themselves "Jedi warriors." Naturally, his character wonders aloud what that is, in a bit that might make you want to throw tiny plastic Obi-Wan Kenobi action figures at the screen.

But making the movie contemporary also seems like a bad idea, since the bulk of the interesting part of the story involves flashbacks to an old army program led by a ponytailed druggie named Bill Django (Jeff Bridges, naturally in total "Dude" mode), the goal of which was to foster mental powers of persuasion in soldiers that would negate the need for armed combat. The movie's main joke is that all of the actual incidences of such behavior are either recounted in suspect anecdotal evidence, or achieved by simple sleight of hand. Had the entire story been set back in the Vietnam era, and focused on the power struggle between Django and unlikable newcomer Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), there might have been a fun period piece here.

Instead, we get the modern-day desert adventures of George and Ewan, which are unfortunately reminiscent of similar moments in the notorious Dustin Hoffman-Warren Beatty bomb Ishtar. These characters are, thankfully, a little more likable, but one can't help remembering that Clooney himself drew more humor and resonance out of the Iraqi dunes a decade ago in Three Kings. And by the time we get to a climax that involves LSD, you may well find yourself wishing your personal bad trip to the movies were over.

The 180—a Second Opinion: Clooney remains likable in a role that essentially parodies his previous heroic turns, and the well-timed use of Boston's "More Than A Feeling" is truly awesome.

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