The first-time director Grant Heslov has come up with something wackier and more whimsical, a quirky rapid-fire military comedy "The Men Who Stare at Goats" which has hit the nation's movie screens today. The movie offers a fitfully amusing adaptation and "inspired by" British journalist Jon Ronson's book, about the U.S. Army's exploration of New Age concepts and the potential military applications of the paranormal techniques, and purports to be closer to the truth than many people would suspect. A title card claims, "More of this is true that you would believe," indicating that Goats is just the tip of the absurdest iceberg.You might not know that there's a silly side to the military-industrial complex, but the folks behind fhe film certainly do. In this quirky dark comedy inspired by a real life story, you will hardly believe is actually true, it set in Iraq, and follows a reporter, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets a special forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). As they embark on a new mind-boggling mission, Lyn reveals his twenty-year involvement in a top-secret wing, psychic military unit and shares details of their activities, each more bizarre than the last.
The film has such a fantastically odd story that Heslov would have been well advised to stay out of the way and let the bizarre details stand on their own. He has tried to crowbar Ronson's anecdotes into a feeble story, and slips too easily into lackluster wrap-up mode down the stretch, but it still has enough serious satire to recommend it. Meanwhile, the screenwriter Peter Straughan hit on more juicy material than he knew what to do with when he adapted Ronson's controversial book and began researching the subject matter himself.
As the result, the film is merely a light-hearted approach, advocating peace and acid not war. It has a glorious good time satirizing the extravagant lengths to which the military and intelligence establishments will go if they think there's a payoff at the other end. However, the film somewhat disappoints because the narrative Straughan has come up with isn't that engaging? the best stuff is in the flashbacks where Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey do battle for the future of the New Earth Army, which contains the most actual material from the original book.
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