The Men Who Stare At Goats (2009): C-

A war satire woefully short on laughs, The Men Who Stare At Goats is about precisely nothing – other than stars desperately trying to energize humorless material – until its concluding moments, at which point it futilely attempts to make a statement about the need for innovative, non-violent dreamers in our current war-entrenched country. Directed by Grant Heslov and starring his Good Night, and Good Luck partner George Clooney, this feeble farce concerns a reporter (Ewan McGregor) who, while struggling to gain entrance into Iraq in 2003 (to prove to his unfaithful wife that he’s a man) finds himself at the side of a lunatic (Clooney) who claims to have been part of a top-secret military operation from decades earlier that turned soldiers into psychic warriors. These self-described “Jedis” were created by an army hippie (Jeff Bridges) convinced that using one’s mind rather than bullets was the path to true success, a bit of heavy-handed allegorical mush that Heslov, working from Peter Straughan’s lethargic script (based on Jon Ronson’s book), makes neither funny nor insightful. Given the talent participating (which also includes Kevin Spacey as a rival of Clooney’s), Goats should be expected to elicit at least a few chuckles or sparks of genuine drama. Alas, as it flip-flops between Clooney and McGregor’s escapades in the Iraqi desert and flashbacks to new-agey drug-ins and goofy extrasensory experiments conducted on military bases, the film – amounting to a series of barely tethered surrealistic shenanigans perpetrated by coasting A-listers – finds neither a rhythm nor a purpose.