yet, and the groove gets lost. Cassady leads the reporter deeper into occupied Iraq, and “The Men Who Stare at Goats’’ becomes a cracked buddy movie: Hope and Crosby in “The Road to Baghdad.’’ One problem is that McGregor’s character isn’t funny or even interesting. A larger problem is that Grant Heslov, directing his first feature after writing “Good Night, and Good Luck’’ (as well as producing other Clooney movies), loses his way in the script’s many crosscurrents.
At some point, “The Men Who Stare at Goats’’ has to become about what we’ve done in Iraq – about how the pacifist ideals of the NEA have been warped by the modern Army – and it turns both preachy and confused. Kevin Spacey barely shows up for his role as the unit’s designated snake in the grass; the tone shifts from psychedelic “Catch-22’’ to hectic sub-Altman chaos.
Heslov wants us to laugh at the New Earth Army’s hippie-dippy vision and embrace it at the same time, and he’s just not that agile a director. The movie collapses, a disappointing case of coulda-been. Still, it leaves a moral worth treasuring: Free your goats and your mind – and country – will follow.
download The Men Who Stare at Goats full movie online