Peformances full of joy in ‘Goats’

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“The Men Who Stare at Goats” pokes fun at the U.S. military for trying to create a team of psychic warriors, but you at least have to give the military credit for keeping an open mind.

Produced by and starring George Clooney, “Goats” opens with the words “more of this story is true than you will believe.” That is a clever way of dodging the question of which parts are true. The script, credited to Peter Straughan, is a fictional story derived from Jon Ronson’s 2004 nonfiction book.

Ronson’s book details the creation of the so-called New Earth Army, which tried to employ psychic phenomena such as remote viewing and telekinesis in the late 1970s, and the unlikely rebirth of the program’s tactics during the Bush administration’s war on terror. The film shifts between the two time frames, and I’m willing to bet most of the “truth” will be found in 30-year-old episodes.

The script’s framing device is unlikely, but the plot moves quickly enough to just go with it.

See GOATS, page 3D

Unhappy newspaper reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) travels to Kuwait in 2002 hoping to revive his career.

The war in Iraq has entered the post-“Mission Accomplished” phase, and defense contractors are lined up at the border ready to make billions rebuilding the country.

Bob allies himself with one of the contractors, Lynn Cassady (Clooney), who was once the star of the New Earth Army, the only member to successfully kill a goat by staring at it. All sorts of misfortunes befall Bob and Lynn once they enter Iraq, and in between engine failures and kidnappings, Lynn relates the story of the New Earth Army’s creation.

Movies structured around flashbacks can be tedious, but Straughan achieves a good flow. The flashbacks are welcome because they are the strongest part of the film – the brightest, the funniest and also the most plausible.

Even though it sounds like a few colonels took their X-Men comics too seriously, it is easy enough to believe how a 1980s military program would evolve from the 1970s ESP craze.
Just blame it on the Cold War arms race.

“We can’t afford to let the Russians take the lead in psychic research,” one otherwise skeptical commander puts it. Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), the leader of the New Earth Army, frames it more optimistically: “We must be the first super power to create super powers.”

Maybe it is just easier to laugh at things that happened decades ago, but the contemporary story never attains the same power as the flashbacks. Director Grant Heslov, Clooney’s frequent creative collaborator, intends it as a satire on how the Iraq war became a boon for contractors. He sometimes hits his target, particularly the scene where a vicious street battle erupts after one Humvee filled with American defense contractors fires on another. Otherwise, much of the movie’s anti-Bush sentiment already comes across as dated.

As usual in one of Clooney’s ensemble pieces, the performances are a joy. Clooney himself is in comedy mode, almost but not quite the doofus he played in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Bridges hits notes of poignancy as Django, an idealist crushed by time and politics. Bridges’ character is contrasted by a cynical New Earth Army recruit played by – who else? – Kevin Spacey. The role offers the type of smarm Spacey does to perfection.

The New Earthers refer to themselves as Jedi Warriors, which sets up about three jokes too many where McGregor, the one-time Obi Wan Kenobi, delivers such lines as “What’s a Jedi warrior?” Even though McGregor is in on the gag, he deserves better.

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