Of course, I meant The Men Who Stare at Goats, not Ghosts, which would have been a better movie.
The Men Who Stare at Goats (George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey) – This is a weird movie. And some of it may be true. The premise is that the Army puts together a unit of intelligence guys who seemingly have paranormal powers. You know, they can see things in hidden places; they foresee events; and they can find the enemy through their psychic powers. No one knows about it when a reporter named Bob Wilton, played by Ewan McGregor, meets a guy who claims to be a member of an elite unit that uses its mind power to fight the enemy. The guy, Lyn Cassady (played by George Clooney), is the star of the U.S. Army’s First Earth Battalion. Their leader is Bill Django, a longhaired, free thinker played by Jeff Bridges in a part he seems to have played before (after all, he was The Dude in the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski). Wilton then goes on an adventure with Cassady. I would tell you more about the story but I dozed through part of it and didn’t really understand much of the rest. I just remember a few funny scenes like the one where Clooney’s character accidentally runs over the only guy in the desert and also runs into the only rock for miles. Then there are the goats, which seemingly are being stockpiled for training purposes. After all, Cassady is capable of staring so hard at a goat that the goat just falls over.
Anyhow, the movie falls short on almost every level I can think of except for its uniqueness or, should I say, weirdness. If this had come from the Coen Brothers, I would have understood. This is based on a Jon Ronson book that I now have no interest in reading. The screenplay was written by Peter Straughan who, according to Ronson, apparently inserted scenes not in the book. Not the best sign of collaboration. Anyhow, I would not recommend that anyone see it. But if you do and like it, let me know.