“More of this story is true than you would believe,” reads the caption at the beginning of The Men Who Stare at Goats, but let's be real: No one involved in this movie goes out of their way to give it the sting of veracity. If a movie can be said to have an attitude, this one would involve a shake of the head, accompanied by a hearty, “Ain't this some crazy shit?”
Director Grand Heslov and screenwriter Peter Straughan are adapting a non-fiction book by journalist Jon Ronson, it's true, and in that book Ronson explores several stranger-than-fiction characters and government operations. For the screen, Ronson has been turned into Michigan reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who finds himself emotionally distraught after his wife leaves him in 2003 for his editor, who happens to have a prosthetic arm. You'd be forgiven if you wondered whether this is the part of the story that isn't true (which it happens to be). And then you'd be wondering how you're supposed to know the difference.
