The Men Who Stare at Goats

I liked it in parts, but overall it’s a bit too hokey. We are supposed to believe more things than we are willing to admit. It smacks of buck-passing to me given Heslov's inability to wring more than a chewing goat, George’s sparkling gaze, and a laughing field base out of this subject and the perfectly typecast actors. It has its moments... and you'll find them all in the trailer. Which is too bad. (18/04/2010)

There are movies that have a solid and clear opinion, such as the anti-war musical Hair, the political satire Wag the Dog, or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which mercilessly mocks conformity and hypocrisy. Then there are movies that don't have a strong opinion because their sole purpose is to create maximum fun, like Tropic Thunder or Borat. The Men Who Stare at Goats is perfectly cast and occasionally has really successful jokes about the army and others. But I really don't know what the opinion is, what the film is actually conveying, and from where and to where it is heading. Meanwhile, the subject has the power of a hydrogen bomb and could have given birth to a top-notch satire that could rival the most famous films in its genre. Both superpowers during the Cold War really did have a crazy military program that tried to use parapsychology and all those crazy ideas, predicting the future, levitation, and God knows what else. And on both sides, this was sincerely hated and despised by rational-thinking military experts and politicians. Yet it seems like the screenwriter took a hit of marijuana or licked LSD and because it's so hazy and saturated with New Age nonsense, the feeling of a top-quality film, unfortunately, didn't arrive. Overall impression: 60%. If the peak humorous scene was supposed to be the drugging of a military base with a strong dose of LSD, then the screenwriter is a fool, because something like that could have ended in a crazy massacre... (03/01/2013)

Too bad it doesn’t hold together better, but there are so many great moments in The Men that Stare at Goats that we are happy to forgive the couple that are just “too weird". The cast is first-rate (Clooney and McGregor balance each other perfectly) and it’s just a shame that the authors didn’t squeeze milk the chosen topic of “Jedi warriors" a tiny bit more. There is certainly cult potential in the movie. La tutlek. Ana sahaffi. (12/02/2010)

This movie is going to make me go crazy. I gave it three stars the first time, because I was entertained by the individual scenes in the movie theatre, but as a whole it just didn't impress me. Then I read the book, got mad at the filmmakers, and lowered my rating by two stars. And now I watched The Men Who Stare at Goats again... And I liked it. Too much, even! I don't know what it is, I really don't...__P.S. Rolfe Kent is definitely one of my favorite contemporary composers. (08/09/2010)

I didn't have many memories of the movie, but I knew that I enjoyed it. When I saw it again now, I realized what I enjoyed about it. It's the absurdity of the great story and how it's presented. The performances by the actors only enhance that absurdity, which is good because there's a great cast here. I had a great time again. (02/04/2015)