Film Review : The Men Who Stare At Goats

This is another film based on a book much loved by its' readers. In the case, the book is not a work of fiction but a study of the somewhat unusual methods used in some sections of the CIA to gain advantages of their enemy of the moment.

I've not read the book but it's clear from other comments that the film is a very different take on this topic from the book. Whilst the book appears to be a serious study of the more ludicrous end of CIA activities, the film plays things pretty much for laughs coming across as Coen-lite.

Not that the end result is anything other than an enjoyable film. George Clooney plays the charming and committed idiot whose earnestness and dedication to the task more than overwhelms the absurdity of the situation he finds himself in.

Ewan McGregor plays an equally gormless journalist who decides to follow the story all the way to a middle eastern warzone as a means of proving himself to his wife. You can imagine how that works out.

Whilst both these characters demonstrate an amusing gullibility, Kevin Spacey adds a touch of ambition to the mix. Seemingly always bested by Clooney, his focus means he ends up floating to the top of the tree for the film's climax.

However, the film is pretty much stolen by Jeff Bridges as the soldier who sets the whole shebang up. If you can imagine The Big Lebowski's Dude in charge of a CIA operation then you'll love this performance.

As mentioned before, this is very much Coen-lite and makes the whole idea of what the CIA were doing an object of some ridicule rather than as something sinister (which is how I suspect its' presented in the source material). But if you can't laugh at some of these things that are done supposedly in our name, there'd only be one alternative.