Didn't Like It. Not Funny.

Rating: 3/10 (19 November 2009)

A few stars for the acting, but why did any of them agree to make this movie, while Americans are still dying in Iraq?
Clooney was his usual perfect self, creating a twitchy character unlike any of his others. Shades of The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges is in it too, essentially reprising his TBL character as a military hippie. Robert Patrick was in it, showing his age since Terminator 2 of 1992...how does this happen? How can these actors get older while I myself never age a bit, retaining the smooth dewy skin of my youth? (In the bathroom mirror, with the lights off, before sunup.)
Anyway. I didn't like Men Who Stare At Goats. I didn't like it at all. I don't think IEDs are funny. We lost a neighbor to an IED. I didn't think the treasonous release of the prisoners was funny, either.
"Too soon?" Too soon forever, for me. This wasn't a romp like Harold & Kumar: Escape from Gitmo. This was a "comedy" which completely missed the mark and is absolutely tone-deaf to the feelings of the American public, especially military families.
The only way the producers could have thought this was funny was if they don't know anyone who has been to Iraq, and don't know anyone who has sent family there. It was contemptuous of the military in non-funny ways,* and I really, really, really didn't like it.
Your mileage may vary. I'm one of them there humorless feminists, for one thing, and know too many people for whom IEDs are no joke at all, for another.
*Unlike Private Benjamin, Stripes (Bill Murray), Dr. Strangelove, Tropic Thunder, etc. Or the funny-but-serious faction film about the boondoggles in the design of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, Pentagon Wars.