Funny, if you ignore the tax implications.

Rating: 5/10 (5 December 2011)

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" starts off with the great warning that you don't want to know how many of the stories are true; this is particularly true if you have paid U.S. taxes during the past 40 years. The movie dramatizes actual U.S. military programs including one that spanned several decades and consumed tens of millions of taxpayer money after the Cold War military was conned into believing that our Soviet opponents were developing "psychic" powers. It also covers stories of U.S. paid military contractors who wound up shooting at each other again a dramatization but based on real and embarrassing events. The deliciousness of these tales is the movie's strength but also its weakness as the throwaway plot that is woven around them about Ewan McGregor's jilted newspaper reporter trying to impress this ex-wife by traveling to the Iraqi war zone feels very tacked on. Speaking of McGregor, he shares the screen with what may be the most impressive current male cast possible; props to the casting agent who secured Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and George Clooney each of whom would have been a monster "get" for any movie. Ultimately however, once the stories of the military's foray in new age nonsense and imperialism-on-the-cheap of the Iraqi invasion are told there is not a terribly lot for them to do. Still it is hard to not recommend a movie with a cast this stellar - it might just be worth it to see Jeff Bridges jaw-dropping aging from an energetic hippie general to alcoholic shadow of his former self.