Even if you haven’t seen a movie about psychic Jedi warriors in the United States Army who kill goats with their mind, you may come out of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” thinking that you’ve seen a lot of it before.

George Clooney stars in this adaptation of Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book and Grant Heslov, his producing/writing partner from “Good Night and Good Luck,” takes the director’s chair for the first time. Where Clooney exhibited measured control directing “Good Night,” though, Heslov is all over the map with “Goats.”

The movie can’t quite make up its mind about what it wants to be: a silly farce, a character drama, a military satire, a supernatural story, or the personal journey of a humiliated cuckold. This wouldn’t be a problem if it did all of things well and found a through-line, but “The Men Who Stare at Goats” doesn’t do that. Instead, it’s a random string of gags and scenes (some that work well, some that don’t) that all somehow ring familiar. What the film is lucky to have is an excellent cast that seems game for anything.

The cuckold’s tale

Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, the reporter who stumbles onto the story of the First Earth Battalion around the same time his wife leaves him for a one-armed man. His discoveries about a New Age branch of the Army headed by long-haired Vietnam vet Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) should be enough to get him interested, but instead it’s being dumped that gets him to Iraq, talking quite coincidentally to Django’s star pupil, Lyn Cassady (Clooney). His backstory seems forced from the get-go, but when the absurdities of the situation start piling up, it’s easier to forgive.

Silly farce

From there, the movie has a lot of fun filling in the details of this psi-ops Army division. Few actors today can do furious deadpan delivery like Clooney, but some of the stuff he has to convey is so preposterous that when the film asks you to believe in its characters, it’s just impossible. The exception: Bridges is quite sympathetic as a man who’s faith and hope are always teetering on collapse. On the level of farce, however, the film works for a good hour or so.

Military satire

The suggestion that the Army would pursue psychic exploration—and put up with a flower-carrying troop that stands for everything contrary to Army policy—for the sole reason of weaponizing it, is pretty funny. Screenwriter Peter Straughan gets a lot of mileage out of the notion, hoisting awkward notions of peace right up there against men in military outfits who start behaving strangely. But just when the movie feels as if it ought to be getting somewhere comes the sad realization that it has actually begun to wind down.

Character drama?

When all the characters from this flashback-riddled and disjointed movie finally converge, it’s the biggest letdown of the film. All the possibilities that the script hinted at earlier are unwisely scuttled for a lame escape attempt with no real consequence or purpose. It’s hard to get involved in the characters’ plight, especially when the road that they take is so arbitrary all of a sudden.

Supernatural story

Kevin Spacey plays a career-minded psychic warrior who brings unwanted change into the New Earth Army and therefore confirms our suspicions that all of this mind-literally-over-matter stuff is hogwash. Or is it? “The Men Who Stare at Goats” has an unconvincing and unfunny ending that wants to have it both ways, but just comes off as pandering.

The movie is uneven for sure and ludicrous in conceit, but that’s not to say that it isn’t entertaining at times. McGregor is saddled with a tiresome everyman role, but Spacey, Clooney, and especially Bridges make some of their scenes work better than they should. If only Heslov had been able to make a cohesive film out it …

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One of the most twisted and funniest movies of the year is being released on DVD on December 21, and I’m happy to say we have 4 copies to give away to our loyal Scene-Stealers! Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, John Malkovich, and Tilda Swinton star in a dark, dark comedy from the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan (last year’s winners of Best Director). “Burn After Reading” is a Coen original, for sure, but be forewarned–this movie has more in common with “Fargo” than it does “The Big Lebowski.”

Happy New Year! All entries must be received by Wednesday, Dec. 31. Open to residents of the U.S. 17+.

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For the on-camera review with clips from the movie, click here.

Before the critical triumph of the surprisingly warm-hearted black comedy “Fargo” in 1996, Joel and Ethan Coen’s critics had accused the brothers’ movies of being cold and detached—exercises in cinematic virtuosity, for sure, but lacking empathy for their characters and instead reveling in any opportunity to put them through the wringer.

Those critics are going to hate “Burn After Reading.”

Is it cynical? Yes. Is it mean-spirited? Of course. But—is it funny? Hell yeah.

I guess the answer to that last question really depends on your sense of humor. “Burn After Reading” is certainly not the upbeat romp that its trailers make it out to be. The Coens wrote this at the same time they were adapting last year’s Best Picture winner “No Country for Old Men,” and it looks like that film’s existential dread rubbed off on this one in a big way.

Like “No Country”’s harried protagonist Llewelyn Moss, middle-aged fitness club employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) must make some hard and fast choices when an opportunity to improve her life presents itself. A CD-Rom that may contain classified CIA secrets has fallen into the hands of her friend and co-worker, a hyperactive knucklehead named Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). When Linda decides to blackmail the disc’s apparent owner, fired agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), it sets her on the road to getting that image-improving plastic surgery she wants so badly.

In a series of events too convoluted and ridiculous to believe, Linda is suddenly mixed up with a perverted womanizer (George Clooney), Cox’s icy wife (Tilda Swinton), and a lonely boss who has a crush on her (Richard Jenkins). The plot is a slow build towards a manic conclusion, full of shocking violence and shockingly bizarre revelations.

The Coens’ wicked black humor is on full display here, but I would argue against those who say that the writer-director team have no empathy for their characters. It is easy to get involved with the plight of poor Linda, who is so desperate to be noticed that she can’t notice the people who like her the way she is. Malkovich’s CIA consultant may be self-righteous, but when it comes to getting fired, who can’t relate to that? Even Clooney’s philandering husband really seems to love his wife—he just can’t help himself.

What will piss most people off is the bleak and hopeless worldview that the Coens subscribe to. In a typical Hollywood script, the bad characters are either punished or redeemed and the good ones are allowed a moment of triumph, be it literal or symbolic. Like “No Country for Old Men,” the world of “Burn” seems indifferent to the plight of the average downtrodden American citizen, even if it was their own weaknesses that got them into this jam in the first place.

Hey, at least the Coens have the good humor to be able to laugh in the first place. It’s easy to read a “News of the Weird” column in the newspaper and laugh at the guy with a terrible diet who was killed by his own flatulence. It’s another thing to spend an entire movie getting invested in pathetic characters portrayed by likeable actors, and to have it all blow up in your face, leaving you to wonder why you bothered.

If “No Country” left us to ponder the notion of the random and cruel ways that our seemingly limitless freedom of choice can relate to the bigger picture, then “Burn After Reading” puts an exclamation point on the pointlessness of it all. Whether you are able to laugh at the gratuitous inelegance that the Coens’ universe depicts will depend on you. The last five minutes of “Burn After Reading” had me in hysterics.

Humphrey Bogart famously said in “Casablanca” that “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” Joel and Ethan Coen believe that too. They just have a way more thoroughly sick and twisted way of pointing it out.

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