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George Clooney as Lyn Cassady and Ewan McGregor as Bob Wilton |
Why Jedi McGregor jumped at Goats role
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
Directed by Grant Heslov
Certificate 15
IT'S easy to get the impression that Ewan McGregor did not like the end results of his stab at the Star Wars films.
He had been brought in to play Obi Wan Kenobi in the second batch of three films. I met him a few weeks before the first new film came out and I told him how impressed my mates would be to hear I had spoken with Obi Wan. His eyes darkened and there was real sorrow about his face. Instead of giving it some actor-like gush about how simply wonderful the whole experience was, he quickly changed the subject.
When I saw the film, I knew immediately why – it was rubbish. And, sadly, I have to say McGregor went off the boil as an actor for sometime afterwards – his finest roles being Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, long before Yoda came calling.
This latest film perhaps sees the curse of the Jedi laid to rest. Based on a true story by brilliantly witty journalist Jon Ronson, McGregor plays Bob Wilton, a reporter investigating the wackiest secret projects run by the American military, which included a psychic unit who wanted to turn themselves in Jedi knights.
In their armoury was an attempt to kill people simply by staring at them, a trick practised for hours by crew cut young men staring at goats.
McGregor’s character pronounces with relish jibes about how silly the idea of being a Jedi really is, and you can’t help but be struck by the irony. It is as if he knows taking the Kenobi role was an opportunity he could not turn down, but one he wished with hindsight, he had done, and he attacks Jedis with a real passion throughout this odd comedy.
Despite this film having an excellent parent – Ronson’s book is superbly written, enlightening, witty and on a majorly important topic – it does not translate easily to the big screen.
The plot is flimsy. McGregor and his wobbly accent is a smalltown America news reporter, whose wife has left him for his horrible, plump, balding editor – not something that boosts his ego.
So he flees to Kuwait in the hope of getting some war reporting action as the American and British speed into Iraq to show his estranged love that he has ambition. And it is while twiddling thumbs at a Kuwaiti hotel that he bumps into Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a man who basically believes he is a Jedi knight and was part of the top secret unit Bob had heard about when he interviewed an ex-serviceman and crackpot back in Nowheresville, Arkansas.
Lyn fills Bob in with a potted history of psychic operations and the US military (giving us the opportunity to watch Jeff Bridges clown about as a hippie, one of the films better moments).
Then it is a secret mission into Iraq with Clooney and some unconnected scrapes for the pair to wriggle out of, mainly caused by rival psychic serviceman Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey).
This should have been a wonderful piece of anti-military tubthumping. Ronson’s book uses crackpot CIA/American army’s secret projects to show how ridiculous the idea of war actually is – whether it was a good idea to displace the evil dictatorship of Saddam Hussein through violence can be discussed forever – but for every civilian who died as the war progressed, for every soldier who was killed, it was obviously not worth it. This film about a psychic operations unit could have been used to point out how all war is essentially crazy. Sadly, despite its very best intentions, it is all too muddled to fulfil these laudable aims. |
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