July 8, 2010: The Men Who Stare at Goats
The Men Who Stare at Goats is a comedy with some serious firepower in its casting, and a clever premise, but it did not do well at all and disappeared from theatres almost instantly. Why?
George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey star in this story about a special group of soldiers in the US military who are trained as psychic spies, to effectively have super powers of mind reading/control. McGregor ends up in Iraq with Clooney, and thinks he’s a bit crazy, and something doesn’t add up. It all springs out of non-violent army training which Bridges was conducting in the early 1980s. It turns out that apparently Clooney actually does have psychic powers, which raises competitive jealousy among the group, particularly Spacey.
That description is probably close, but not right on. I was looking for some background entertainment on this particular evening, and didn’t want to devote my full attention to a film which had been soundly rejected by the moviegoing public. The humour is low-key in a good way, but not terribly funny (in a bad way). It was not as high-energy as the trailers may have suggested, which will also have contributed to bad word-of-mouth. It’s a disappointing overall experience, but it helps to prove the rule that even big names can have misfires. I should point out that director Grant Heslov has been a character actor for over 20 years, with only a few directorial credits under his belt, but he’s been associated with George Clooney movies in recent years. As far as I know, playing “Fast” Faisil in True Lies (1994) doesn’t make one qualified to direct major motion pictures, but Hollywood is a strange place.
Comedy misfire by character actor director.
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