The Men Who Stare at Goats is a film that made me want to scream with frustration. It is based on the non-fiction bestseller by the journalist and broadcaster Jon Ronson, describing how he chanced upon rumours of a bizarre secret in American history: since the endgame of Vietnam, the United States military has been financing a research unit specialising in psychic new-age warfare, inspired by reports that the Soviets were doing the same.
It apocryphally included training up mind-control “Jedis” who can fell goats just by staring at them — handy if you are attacked by goats. But these amiable eccentrics evidently went over to the dark side: their work mutated into the psychological torture techniques at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. It is great material for a documentary, and this has its origin in an episode from Ronson’s 2004 television series, The Secret Rulers of the World.
The purpose surely has to be to nail the question: did these psychic warriors actually exist, or not? But like Danny Wallace’s comedy bestseller Yes Man, Ronson’s book has coyly been turned into an elaborate fiction feature, which undermines the whole investigative point. If we can’t be sure how much is being made up, then we have to rely on the entertainment factor, and that is marginal.
Ewan McGregor is on lacklustre, hamstery form as an investigative journalist who chances upon a former Jedi soldier, played by George Clooney, playing to his weakness in a “funny” role — with all the double-taking and head-waggling that he goes into when called upon to play comedy. Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges are similarly under par. A wasted opportunity. —