Fantastic Fest 2009: ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’ Review

Note: The version of The Men Who Stares At Goats was still extremely rough when I saw it. There were color correction issues and sound editing that needed to be taken care of. It lacked a several effects and had filler stock footage and music for some moments, that having been said this is what I felt about it.

Grant Heslov’s The Men Who Stare At Goats is a mess. It’s uneven and doesn’t know what kind of music it wants to be. The basic premise is that the military starts a group of soldiers called Jedi and their platoons is part of the New Earth Army. They’re lead by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), who realized during Vietnam that if they’re going to change the world they need to start with the armies.

Our main character however is Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a down on his luck small town reporter, who follows a lead which eventually brings him to the middle east where he dreams of being a combat reporter in the middle of it all. Instead he finds himself with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), one of the members, and probably the best Jedi in the New Earth Army. He’s on a mission and is convinced that Bob’s destiny is part of it.

This is all well and good but the movie doesn’t know where to go from there. Our heroes get into situations that are random and do nothing to really move the story around. It’s like a bad middle east road trip movie. The pacing her is a complete mess.

Where the movie really shines is in the flash back moments with Clooney and Bridges. They’re chemistry together, what little we get of it, is awesome. Clooney also steals the scene anytime he’s on screen. McGregor’s character is so bland and boring, that it’s just hard to like him at all.

The conclusions in the film are the worst part of all. They don’t wrap anything together and the antagonist which is Kevin Spacey’s Larry Hooper, literally walks off screen one second and we don’t hear what happens to him the rest of the film. He get’s one of the biggest disservices I’ve ever seen.

I cant’ recommend this movie if this is how it’s going to be. It’s only 95 minutes without credits and it’s still too long. You could cut ten minutes of the movie out easily and it’d be a much better film, but then it’d be too short.  There are some genuinely laugh out loud moments from the film, but they’re few and far between and not enough to c.arry the film