Directed by Grant Heslov
Usually George Clooney has quite a twinkle in his eye when he is presenting characters for the big screen, but in this film his deadpan seriousness takes over as he becomes Lyn Cassady, a soldier with unparalleled psychic powers who can kill a goat by just staring at it. His character is actually a compilation of a number of real people who were interviewed by journalist Jon Ronson for his non-fiction book The Men Who Stare at Goats. Ronson’s extensive research uncovered information, going back to the 1950s, about the US military financing investigations into methods of combat using psychic powers. While antics of the New Earth Army are scandalously hilarious, it is scary to think that so much of this film is actually true.
Of course the moustache always helps to make a character appear more serious and fellow new age warriors Kevin Spacey (as Larry Hooper), Stephen Lang (General Hopgood) and Jeff Bridges (as Bill Django) follow Clooney’s lead in the facial hair department. Ewan McGregor also gives his character a moustache as the journalist Bob Wilton who brings us the story the “warrior monksâ€. It is all very serious business, even though the US army probably denies all of it, including one operation code-naming the soldiers Jedi Warriors. But then there was Sydney Gottlieb (the real person), the CIA operative who mixed LSD into the water supply of unsuspecting military personal, and the results were not quite so serious … or were they?
Many stupid things have been done in the name of war and this sharp-witted satire never stops being subversive as it acts some of them out. There’s even a road journey full of mishaps where Cassady and Wilton get to know each other better and a smattering of saccharine idealism suggesting that there might be something out there.
Lezly Herbert
