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Ewan McGregor, Jedi missions, Jeff Bridges on LSD and goats.  Lots and lots of goats. I felt cheated.

It’s 2003 and reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) finds himself in Iraq following a story about the American government’s involvement in the development and application of psychic soldiers called “Jedi”.  (I’ll give you a moment to take in the obvious irony.)  A program started by U.S. Army hard-ass turned new age guru Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) that’s been active for almost thirty years.

Wilton’s informant and guide (both spiritually and otherwise) through the Iraqi landscape is former “Jedi” Lyn Cassady (George Clooney).  It turns out that Lyn was one of Bill’s prized pupils in the program which only served to threaten and enrage rival, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who resented Cassady for being much more gifted.

We basically get two stories happening at the same time.  The modern tale where Bob follows Lyn across the desert on a secret “Jedi” mission.  And the background story where Bob explains, through some incredibly entertaining flashback sequences, the origins and exploits of Bill Django and his psychic battalion.

This movie boasts not only a strong line-up of lead actors but also some great character actors in minor roles.  In my opinion, all of them (save for Clooney and Bridges) ended up misused.  Each actor starts the film off strong.  You get who they are and what motivates them and you have enough time to establish an attachment to them just in time for director Grant Heslov to turn them into hollow character types at the climax of the film.  Oh, how I love unmotivated events and actions just for the sake of moving the story to the next scene. /sarcasm

There’s this term that we use among our buddies.  It’s called “closing the deal”.  Most of you can probably guess what that means and you’d be right.  Some others might need me to explain.  Let’s say you hit your favorite watering hole with your friends.  You spot some fine pretty young thing at the bar and decide to go chat her up.  You hit things off and talk the night away.  Eventually, you flash her that final bit of charm… that old reliable story or smile or even proposition that she can’t resist and suddenly she’s coming back home with you.  That’s closing the deal.  Some guys have it and some don’t.  Now, let’s pretend that you’re that pretty young thing and The Men Who Stare At Goats is trying to charm you.  For about an hour or so, you are going to dig it and respond pretty positively.  You might even practice writing your name with it’s last name.  But the movie can’t close the deal.  All of the charm and intelligence flies right out the window and you start wondering why the hell you cared in the first place.

To me, there’s nothing more disappointing to me than a movie that manages to engage you and keep you entertained and interested but then just putters out and loses gas in the final thirty minutes.  Part of the problem comes from the imbalanced story structure.  While the modern day events are well staged, performed and written… they just don’t have that snap that the flashback scenes have.  It’s unfortunate that the B-plot (for lack of a better phrase) proved to be much more interesting than the main storyline.  I would have much rather seen the movie in a more linear format and just lost the modern “mission” with it’s horribly anti-climactic ending.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is a very original story and apparently based on actual events (for whatever that’s worth nowadays.  I think I saw that tag on Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs).  It manages to keep you entertained with some truly inspired moments but when those credits started to roll, I felt cheated.  This flick had Ewan McGregor, Jedi missions and Jeff Bridges on LSD.  How was this not the greatest movie of 2009?

(sigh) I’m going to go watch Zombieland again.  Call me when something more satisfying comes out.

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