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90A superbly written loony-tunes satire, played by a tony cast at the top of its game.
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88All of the actors play without winks and spins, unless you consider Lebowskism itself a wink and spin.
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80George Clooney dazzles and Jeff Bridges shines in a scattershot but often hilarious military farce.
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75The go-for-broke performances help make all this paranormal activity too much fun to care.
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75Has a glorious good time satirizing the extravagant lengths to which the military and intelligence establishments will go if they think there's a payoff at the other end.
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75The film is more than a little odd but it has fun with its offbeat premise and moves along breezily until it gets bogged down in the third act.
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75An often highly amusing comedy in the vein of "Catch 22" and "Dr Strangelove," this lively satire looks destined for future cult status. Great soundtrack, too.
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75A refreshingly unpredictable and fizzy comic fantasy. It tickles the fancy even when it strains credibility.
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75The writing is haphazard at times, though the situations are funny enough in themselves to sustain our interest.
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75This jam-packed picture is too zippily scripted and edited to get stuck in message mode, yet the stellar cast achieves a rare harmonic convergence.
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Even if The Men Who Stare at Goats is not worth comparing to "Dr. Strangelove," it should satisfy audiences with its great cast and patent absurdities, coated in quaint nostalgia for the happy hippie days of yore.
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70Still worth watching because it provides a showcase for a group of actors who really appreciate this kind of farcical comedy.
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70Likable, lightweight, absurdist comedy.
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67There is Clooney's deceptively layered performance, some startling bits of laugh-out-loud absurdity, and the not-at-all-negligible pleasure to be had in a cockeyed point of view.
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67There are moments of levity throughout the film, but it's made with pedestrian craft and feels more like a set-up and a series of vignettes than a compelling yarn. Chiefly, it demonstrates just how accomplished the Coens are even when their films seem offhanded and easy.
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67This is a movie about a "New Earth Army" full of misfit soldiers yearning for a chance to be non-conformists with a cause, which means it's already two-thirds of the way to being awesome. Had Heslov eased back a bit, Goats might've made it the rest of the way.
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63This is the anti-"Hurt Locker" experience: Where that Iraq War film was absorbing and deadly serious, The Men Who Stare at Goats is irreverent and lighthearted. One only wishes it were a more consistently funny film.
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63Content to be sparkly when it should be sharp-edged and shrewd; it has the potential to roar like a lion, but instead it lays lambs at our feet.
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60It is frustrating to see this much raw talent on the screen, not to mention behind the camera, and to have had these people produce something that hints at so many complex things, but ultimately fails to deliver on them. It's just a comedy, then. So be it, Jedi.
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60Clooney gives it everything, but what does he get in return? A void where the story is meant to be.
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58By bringing the story into Iraq, Grant Heslov courts tastelessness. Gooniness and Gitmo don't mix.
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50Much of The Men Who Stare at Goats is indeed amusing, although mostly in a mild, setting-the-stage kind of way, and your smiles eventually turn to yawns.
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50What's impressive about Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats is how he marries his goofy, comic side with his dramatic side.
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50You can't make this stuff up, but you can botch the telling of it, and that's what sinks this satiric drama.
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50These Stooges-like antics are more about showing what good sports his stars are than honing any real satiric edge.
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50When the haze wears off and the movie grounds itself in reality, it's a bummer. Until then, though, what's weird here is gloriously weird.
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50Clooney and Bridges model an assortment of wigs and facial hair as they labor to put across their outsize characters; at its best the movie recalls a subpar episode of M*A*S*H.
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40An unfocused comedy about weird Army pseudoscience, ends up blinking before we laugh.
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40Despite a backbeat of perky music and the sarcastic voiceover meant to lubricate the action, The Men Who Stare at Goats lacks pizzazz. The movie isn't funny enough to work as farce, but it's far too dippy to take seriously.
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30There's no doubt we need more movies for grown-ups, with jokes that don't hit us over the head, but The Men Who Stare at Goats doesn't fit the bill. At best, it might hypnotize you into a stupor.
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30You may wonder if this screen version of the book of the same name is as unfunny and strangely mushy as it seems, but trust your instincts.
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25At the end, as I stumbled back onto the street as disoriented and grateful as a released POW, I thought I'd need a calendar to calculate the length of time I'd been away.
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0A magical-realist sitcom war farce that ends up being about nothing but its own slovenly smugness.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 39
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Mixed: 7 out of 39
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Negative: 14 out of 39