Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats

An all-star cast delivers plenty of laughs but little substance in this comedy that suffers from a crisis of identity.

Grant Heslov's directorial debut is an adaptation of Jon Ronson's comic memoir of his time spent in Iraq in the build up to the invasion by the Allied Forces. Ewan McGregor plays journalist Bob Wilton, who heads to Iraq determined to prove himself as a writer and as a man (he's recently been cuckolded by his boss).

When in Iraq, he meets up with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a self-proclaimed psychic soldier who recounts the story of his life in the US Army, while the two attempt to enter Iraq and find the action each seeks for different reasons.

The film is funny, both leads give good performances, and they are ably supported by Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey, but the film loses it's way badly in the final third. What had been an irreverent comedy becomes something more conventional, something in need of closure for characters, which as they were set up, could never have achieved it. As such, it's hard to truly recommend Heslov's film as anything other than a mild diversion.