The Men who Stare at goats - Review

Okay. What are the odds, for my previous post and this movie having a common ground? The movie speaks (mocks) about the power of mind and controlling them to kill goats.

My hubby and I have cultivated the habit of watching at least one movie each week. Being a huge movie buff with strong opinions, strangely this is my first movie review ever on paper… well on web. It’s a strange move that we decided to watch this piece of work by Grant Heslov in cinemas.  Normally we watch chick flicks, documentaries, etcetera on DVDs.

Well having not read the book written by Jon Ronson myself, I am in no position to comment on whether the movie does justice to his work. However I can vouch for some rib-tickling moments in the presentation. In essence, the movie is about a secret psychic division in US military, its neurotic followers and the voyage of a journalist to middle-east with an eccentric psychic monk. The movie takes its pace when journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) runs into weirdo Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who declares that he was on a secret mission to Iraq. For the following 40 minutes per-say, the whole cinema auditorium was roaring with laughter. Be it, speaking about splitting clouds and leaving the car to crash, or talking about intuitions and taking 30 minutes to choose a road, Mr Clooney as Mr Cassady, excels. On the other hand Ewan McGregor gives a neat performance as a common man with fresh wounds from a broken relationship, clueless of what to do, join Clooney and realizes his stupidity when captured by some terrorists in Kuwait desert where it was too late. Normally tough to match Clooney’s performance when he is in song, McGregor delivers the impossible. Other person deserving applause is Jeff Bridges (Bill Django) as founder of this, one of a kind psychic division. Jeff occupies most of his screen space in Cassady’s flash backs as dynamic boss and steals the show.

However after an hour’s time, I suddenly realized that my eyes were burning and I was yawning uncontrollably. Anyone would have expected fireworks when Kevin Spacey (Larry Cooper) joins this three men team. In contrary, the movie slows down on introduction of emotional quotient and vicious Larry Cooper. The viewers had to literally push the last 30 minutes for the movie to end.

On the whole, the movie is worth the first half and some spectacular comic timing from George Clooney and Jeff Bridges.

Copyright © Sivi 12-Nov-2009