.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

When Bob (Ewan McGregor) heads to Kuwait during the 2002 Gulf War to try and win back the affection of his ex-wife, he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a military psychic spy on a secret mission heading into war torn Iraq.

This is the simple premise behind The Men Who Stare at Goats, an oddly-titled star studded movie that is suggested built on truth regarding some of the far out military experiments the U.S. Military was conducting back in the 1980's in hopes of developing a super soldier.

Bob and Lyn get into dangerous and yet darkly comedic situations during their discoveries of each other with Lyn revealing that he has psychic powers which includes being able to kill a goat with his mind.

The film bounces between Bob and Lyns adventure and back to the past where Lyn recalls how he was recruited and how two other psychic leaders, Bob (played wonderfully by Jeff Bridges) and their comrade and enemy, Larry (Kevin Spacey).

The Men Who Stare at Goats is primarily a road movie between the two leads. Clooney is at his comedic best detailing abilities and experiences that come across as being half believable thanks to the incredible acting behind the reveal. We can only hope that on the heels of The Men Who Stare at Goats and Burn Before Reading that Clooney is offered more off-ball roles to go along with his Academy Award option dramas.

But it is the flashbacks that are really on display here. The back story of Bob, Lyn and Larry is incredibly funny and more interesting than the plights of two lost souls in the desert.

I had the opportunity to preview The Men Who Stare at Goats at the 2009 Toronto Film Festival and the audience loved it. Right from the opening of an army general staring at a wall that he will eventually try and run through, the audience roared in appreciation.

However, a revisit upon the films release with an audience filling in only about 1/20th of the theatre, was less electric. Where the Festival crowd ate up the scenes where an entire base eats eggs laced with LSD, the general public was less amused and obviously restless.

I sit in the middle. There are some moments of pure joy in the film - mostly involving Jeff Bridges, but the movie begins to drag in the final act and the humor that surrounded references to the military spy's as Jedi Warriors begins to wear thinner than an Olson twin's leg. With ridiculous comedy a la The Big Lebowski, I wished that like the Coen Brother's classic that there was a musical number somewhere towards the end of the film to break up the monotony.

That leaves The Men Who Stare at Goats as a strong rental but not necessarily something that you need to rush to the theatre to see.