Laura Magruder/Overture Films
Jeff Bridges, left, and George Clooney in the foreground in a scene in
“The Men Who Stare at Goats,” about an Army unit.

In “The Men Who Stare at Goats” George Clooney wears a heavy mustache and a somewhat shaggier version of the military haircut called a high and tight, two adjectives which also describe his performance in this likable, lightweight, absurdist comedy.

As Lyn Cassady — a fictional member of an Army unit that was weirder and possibly truer than most science fiction — Mr. Clooney has shed his cool cat skin to embrace his inner clown. Juggling tics, double takes, eyeball bulges and explosive gestures, he leaps in the air and splats in the sand with cartoon abandon, buoyed by the jokes and the big bounce of his own stardom.

With his thrusting jaw, Lyn looks as if he could have been drawn by Milton Caniff, the creator of the comic-strip tough guy Steve Canyon. Instead Lyn has been drawn in crude if generally effective strokes by Mr. Clooney and his producing partner, Grant Heslov, who together also wrote “Good Night, and Good Luck.” Mr. Clooney directed that film, but for this one Mr. Heslov has moved behind the camera to make a somewhat ragged directing debut. Though he never settles into a groove, moving between would-be parody and could-be sincerity, Mr. Heslov does keep the parts more or less in play, aided by the outlandishness of his story and by the performances of Mr. Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Stephen Lang.

Written by Peter Straughan and based on the nonfiction book by Jon Ronson, also titled “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” the film tells parallel stories that finally join. One involves a journalist, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who after his marriage tanks, heads to Iraq to give his life meaning. What he discovers is Lyn, a recruit in the mysterious New Earth Army, an experimental Army program centered on parapsychology that was developed by a Vietnam vet, Bill Django (Mr. Bridges) and pushed into creation by the gonzo General Hopgood (Mr. Lang). Realizing that he has the makings of a juicy story, Bob tags after Lyn, a decision that leads him both into Iraq and Lyn’s past in the New Earth Army.

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