A failure, but an interesting and entertaining one

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2011)

My expectations of this film were very low, so it's no surprise I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. It's true that The Men Who Stare At Goats is messy, the narrative very unbalanced, and the second half of it completely misses the potential it had and spoils everything that was good about the first half, but I always prefer films that try to do something new and strange and fail, over ones that play it safe and make for a mild and forgettable success, and this one is definitely the former.
With a great premise and an excellent cast, The Men Who Stare At Goats could have been much better than it is. The actors do a terrific job - in particular Clooney and Bridges (Spacey delivers but his character is just not interesting enough to work, and McGregor makes for an obvious straight-man character that serves only as a narrator and isn't compelling by his own right). It's a shame that a better movie wasn't made from this great story, but still it's an interesting movie with some terrific moments that's worth your 90 minutes.