It is hard to picture the U.S. Army incorporating hippie ideals of peace and love into its agenda. Who would think that they would have created a specific role for long-haired free spirits? Yet the Vietnam War spawned such a mission under the name of the First Earth Battalion, the most interesting subject of the movie Men Who Stare at Goats. Based off of the book by Jon Ronson, Men Who Stare at Goats combines two intertwined narratives: that of the First Earth Battalion itself, and Ronson’s adventure to expose it.

With numerous farcical events and a characteristically deadpan tone throughout, it is unclear to what degree the movie attempts to seriously portray Ronson’s investigation of an absurd yet real matter. Natively British, Ronson (played by Ewan McGregor) is rewritten under the name Bob Wilton, a journalist from Ann Arbor who, in seeking to find a more exciting niche, travels to Iraq where he meets Lyn Cassidy (played by George Clooney). As it turns out, Cassidy is a former member of the First Earth Battalion, and the two wind up together on an adventure that takes them throughout Iraq without any clear goal.

Throughout their wanderings, McGregor narrates the history of the First Earth Battalion. The initial motivation for this group was infantry captain Bill Django’s (played by Jeff Bridges) observation that young soldiers often did not aim to kill, leading to the conclusion that more peaceful and effective means of warfare were necessary. Django takes time off from the army to travel and participate in the New Age movement; upon returning, he receives funding from the army to start the First Earth Battalion.

Cassidy is reassigned to this unit where he goes on to become one of the top pupils. Cassidy shows strong psychic ability and becomes a master of martial arts techniques, a skill that almost gets him and Wilton killed by some supposed Iraqi insurgents. Such psychic skills include foresight, to be used to predict enemy movements, as well as psychological testing, which is later used for interrogation. In a dark twist of fate, Cassidy stops the heart of a goat with his psychic powers, an act that inspires the title and curses Cassidy.

The two narratives link up in the end, as Cassidy and Wilton meet up with a former comrade/rival of Cassidy, Larry Hooper (played by Kevin Spacey), who is in charge of an Iraqi prisoner camp. The end is happy for all. Wilton and Django spike all of the food in the camp with LSD, allowing the prisoners to run free and ending the movie on a humorous note, albeit one that is cliché.

We never learn what influence the First Earth Battalion had on the interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo, but this is obviously not the point of the movie. Clooney shows versatility as a funny man, but McGregor’s poorly written lines inhibit his development as a compelling and likeable character. If you have a short attention span, I think that you’ll find something in common with this movie.