Netflix Minute: The Men Who Stare at Goats

 

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

Quirkiness is a tricky beast. Directors like the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson have an uncanny ability to tap into this style and present generally well regarded films as a result. Many others try their best to capture this beast and steer it to their own success, but ultimately fail. It's hard to say where Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats ends up between those two extremes, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I had fun with his latest flick.

The film tells the story of a group of supernatural soldiers trained in the Army under Bill Django, played by Jeff Bridges. It's told mostly through flashbacks, relayed in concert with the unfolding events between journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) and former Army "Jedi Warrior" Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). The two met in Kuwait when Bob was desperately looking for an interesting story to report on after his wife left him. When he heard Lyn's name, he recalled an interview he held with a man who he then thought was crazy, going on about military experiments with the paranormal.

 

Looking for any excuse to get into Iraq, Bob joins Lyn on a fairly ambiguous quest driven by the former's remote vision of a future event. If you can't tell by now, The Men Who Stare at Goats is no typical war film. In fact, the whole thing is played fairly loose with whimsical dialogue and ubiquitous humor. Much of the story is told through flashbacks of the "good old days", when Django was training his greenhorn psychics with hippy-esque meditation and free spirited activities.

Unfortunately, much of the story is also told through voice-over. If you ask me, voice-over is one of the most dangerous things you can do with a film. This style of storytelling makes it far too easy to convey the meaning of events as they unfold, possibly going as far as ripping out any mystery that might exist. Not only that, but Heslov's film is hard to follow due to the unconventional plot, so you might think such explanation might be welcome. However, McGregor's interspersed dialogue does little to shine any light on the reasons why certain scenes may have significance to the plot, rather explaining exactly what's going on or beating you over the head with the main themes at key points along the way.

 

Outside the odd sense of storytelling and disjointed plot, there was a lot to like. The Men Who Stare at Goats is certainly a film about moments, relishing certain events for their sheer ridiculousness to the point of hilarity. George Clooney carries these scenes, delivering a perfect straight-man performance that adds a layer of credibility and humor whenever he's on the screen. Admittedly, I feel like Clooney can essentially do no wrong, as he's offered fantastic acting ability in almost every movie he's been in recently.

Unfortunately, Clooney feels like the only actor who was not wasted on the film's painfully audacious plot. McGregor acts as a fairly blank cipher for the audience, relaying the events with agonizing transparency and reacting to everything with a skepticism that the viewer is certainly meant to feel. Jeff Bridges isn't given much to work with, playing the stereotype unlikely hippy. Kevin Spacey is certainly the most wasted, filling into the diabolical nemesis of Clooney's Cassady for the most paper-thin reasons.

Despite all of the failings that I mentioned, The Men Who Stare at Goats managed to keep me amused most of the way through. It's difficult to shake the comedic timing of guys like Clooney, Bridges, and Spacey no matter how little you give them. Clooney especially shines in this film, giving one of his most humorous performances in recent memory. The gags managed to carry me to the end, pushing through the silly plot and hamfisted message.

Score: 3 out of 5

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