The Men Who Stare At Goats
Directed by Grant Heslov - US - 2009

Making a comedy that highlights the problems of the current Iraq War seems to require a bit more precision and cohesion than this grab-bag of contemporary targets and warmed-over jokes. Two central stories – one about a secret faction of the military, known as the “earth army,” which was tasked with developing psychic warfare techniques that would peacefully resolve conflicts, and the other about a buddy-buddy adventure through private contractor-infested Iraq taken by a reporter and an ex-earth army soldier – mesh awkwardly, with the help of an absurd amount of narration. The resultant movie winds up missing the chance to lampoon gung-ho Mid-East policy wonks, private contractors, journalists, ex-hippies and common soldiers, all of which it targets at one plot-point or another.

The idea of a military branch dedicated to ending war  is a comedically ripe one, and it’s not surprising that it was latched on to so thoroughly by a cabal of Hollywood lefties (Clooney, Bridges, Spacey.) But like Michael Moore’s recent lament to Naomi Klein about the laziness of the left, in an interview about Capitalism: A Love Story (“You ever try to organize anything on the left in August?”) this team of liberal movie-makers have far too vague an idea of who and what they are trying to satirize to come up with a solid comedy. Instead they rely on Jeff Bridges' ever-present Dude-persona, George Clooney’s trademark (for his comedy roles) facial tics and jerky mannerisms and Kevin Spacey’s autopilot superciliousness, along with a pile of jokes about butt-baring hospital gowns, load-bearing testicles and crackpot conspiracy theorists, to keep it moving. The biggest joke here is that the movie itself is as ineffectual at figuring out what to do as each of the characters it’s trying to laugh at. Were that the point – that a movie about free-floating peace-warriors was made in a consciously free-floating fashion – then The Men Who Stare At Goats might be sharper than it is vague and lumpy.