<strong><span class="subhead">&lsquo;The Men Who Stare at Goats&rsquo; &#x2605;&#x2605; 1/2</span></strong></p><p><strong>Rated R | Time: 1:33</strong></p><p>&ldquo;The Men Who Stare at Goats&rdquo; is a handful of hilarious scenes looking for a movie.</p><p>Based on Jon Ronson&rsquo;s nonfiction book about attempts by the CIA and the military to &ldquo;weaponize&rdquo; the occult, Grant Heslov&rsquo;s directing debut offers plenty of New Age silliness and yet another memorable performance from George Clooney, this time as a paranoiac convinced he&rsquo;s a Jedi warrior.</p><p>Our guide into this world of psychic black ops is small-town reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor, who really <em>has</em> played a Jedi warrior). Jilted by his wife, Bob decides to prove himself by covering the invasion of Iraq. He gets only as far as Kuwait and stalls, unable to land a gig as an imbedded journalist.</p><p>In a hotel lobby he stumbles across Lyn Cassady (Clooney), who says he&rsquo;s about to enter Iraq as a government contractor. In reality Lyn is a psychic warrior, one of a handful trained in a now-defunct government program. He&rsquo;s on a special mission with supernatural overtones.</p><p>A delighted Bob decides to tag along.</p><p>Peter Straughan&rsquo;s screenplay unfolds simultaneously in the present &mdash; with Bob and Lyn dealing with kidnappers, IEDs, broken-down cars, bad desert weather and firefights &mdash; and in the past, where we see Lyn and his fellow psychic spies training in a kind of woo-woo boot camp.</p><p>The contemporary story is no big deal. But making &ldquo;Goats&rdquo; memorable are the flashbacks to the clandestine program with a Looney Tunes Vietnam vet (Jeff Bridges &mdash; interviewed on <strong>C3</strong>) leading the recruits in meditation sessions, acid trips, manly bare-chested dancing and attempts (all failures) to walk through walls.</p><p> Of special note are the sessions in which they stare relentlessly at goats, trying to stop the creatures&rsquo; hearts with the power of their minds.</p><p>Director Heslov nails these absurd exercises. We watch in delighted wonder as hardened military careerists turn their world view inside out in an effort to be at one with the universe. </p><p>But whenever we return to &ldquo;today,&rdquo; &ldquo;Goats&rdquo; feels phony. For example, an encounter with Lyn&rsquo;s old psychic nemesis (Kevin Spacey), who&rsquo;s been allowed to revive the program using Iraqi prisoners as test subjects, lacks the kernel of truth that makes the weird flashbacks feel right.</p><p> McGregor&rsquo;s fine as the hapless scribe, but it&rsquo;s Clooney who steals the movie. The role is comic, but unlike his work in &ldquo;O Brother, Where Art Thou?&rdquo; he doesn&rsquo;t push things to the brink of cartoonishness. Rather his Lyn takes himself very seriously &hellip; which makes his nutsy pronouncements all the more disconcerting.