The Men Who Stare at Goats was supposed to be hilarious. It was supposed to show us a new side of George Clooney. It was supposed to satirize the military in a way that would make a point while making people laugh. It was supposed to be a good movie. It failed to do what it was supposed to do.

Clooney has proved in the past that he can play any role. From a seductive attorney in Intolerable Cruelty to a criminal gambler in Ocean’s Eleven to a 1920s football player in Leatherheads. He normally acts with class, comedy, charm or any combination of the three. The Men Who Stare at Goats, however, did not give Clooney a chance to be Clooney, because it was too busy trying to keep its audience awake.

Clooney played the mysterious Lyn Cassidy in The Men Who Stare at Goats, who turned out to closely resemble his Michael Clayton role, yet as a seemingly dazed and confused military officer, he lacked the charm that makes you want to root for him.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a story of a struggling journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor, The Island, Star Wars), on a mission to write a breakthrough story about the Iraq War to prove to himself, his editor and his wife (who recently left him for his editor) that he is not a loser.

While sitting at a hotel restaurant in Kuwait, Wilton spots Cassidy and is later drawn to his room, where he learns about his past and decides to write a story about it. Cassidy claims to be a retired member of a special operations task force in the military called “The New Earth Force” and that he holds the rank of “Jedi Warrior.”

When Wilton and Cassidy leave Kuwait and head toward Iraq, Wilton starts to see Cassidy in a different light. Cassidy’s theories on “fighting with peace” and nonviolent or nonlethal war practices, though idealistic, do not seem to make sense to the more conventional Wilton. Although Wilton seems closed-minded about Cassidy’s tactics, he continues to ride with him. The story is supposed to be unrealistic, but there are scenes when Clooney tries too hard to make his character work, and just ends up looking stupid.

The movie satirizes the absurdity of the U.S. military’s practices in both the handling of prisoners of war and fighting tactics in general. The satire, however, was so subtle that even if you are politically well-versed, you would not find it funny or interesting or enjoyable.

The Men Who Stare at Goats disguises itself as an action comedy with a hilarious and talented cast including, Kevin Spacey (21, The Negotiator) and Jeff Bridges (Iron Man, The Big Lebowski). The producers of this movie would have been better off taking the original book written by Jon Ronson (which is not done justice by the movie, and is a must-read) and having

+-0 this talented cast to act it out line by line, displaying the serious themes of the story in a more clear and straight-forward fashion.

The film had a great cast and a great story, but could not live up to its expected success. The movie was so awful, that it is not clear what would be more torturous, watching this movie again, or actually staring at goats. Hopefully the next Clooney movie will be worth remembering.