Blu-ray Review: "The Men Who Stare at Goats"

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a journalist who, after being left by his wife, heads for Iraq to report on the war. While there, he comes in contact with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a former "special ops" soldier in the Army whose training was in psychic warfare. He is, in his own words, a Jedi whose abilities include making himself invisible and killing goats with his mind. Sensing a story, Wilton follows Cassady on a mission only to be dragged through the desert into some crazy situations that eventually reunite Cassady with his mentor, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges).

"Goats" is apparently loosely based on a true story, though I have no idea how much of this is fact and how much is exaggeration. Regardless the whole thing is, quite frankly, pointless. "Goats" has an identity problem in that it cannot decide whether it wants to be a dark comedy, a drama, or a political satire. I think it has dreams of being the latter but that's certainly more an assumption on my part than it is anything I could really pick up from this poorly developed film. Meanwhile, the cast all give mailed in performances and make you feel like they all figured out this was a sinking ship early on and acted appropriately. There might be a story worth telling somewhere in here but it definitely doesn't show itself here.

Grade: C-