Looking for a movie to watch the other evening my wife and I selected The Men Who Stare at Goats. It is the movie adaptation (not so faithfully adapted) of a book by the same name by author Jon Ronson. It is a comedic version of the U.S. Army's attempts at using new age techniques to fight the Cold War.
Ewan McGregor plays a reporter from Ann Arbor Michigan, who, after his wife leaves him for the papers editor, decides to become a war correspondent in Iraq. There he runs in to George Clooney's character, a former member of the Army's "New Age Weapons" group, Jedi Warriors, and hooks up with him. The film has many flashbacks to the origination of the program under Jeff Bridges character, who might be Lebowski at an older age (The Big Lebowski is a classic).
Clooney is terrific, Bridges is great, McGregor is ok. Kevin Spacey also shows up a few times and just kind of walks through his role.
For the most part, the roles are exagerated but the comedy is understated, reminds me of some of the movies from the 70's, I kept expecting Donald Southerland to show up. I probably enjoyed it more than my wife did, but then, I could identify with it a bit more.
Overall, I would give it a hair over 3 stars out of five. I didn't feel that I had lost the better part of 2 hours by watching it. Some of the "warped" minds on this site will find it very enjoyable.
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