Updated: Wednesday, 11th November, 2009 4:57pm

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Film File - The Men Who Stare at Goats

A reporter gets much more than he bargained for when he accidentally discovers a top-secret wing of the US Army while accompanying an enigmatic special forces soldier on a mission behind the lines in Iraq.

Journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney), an unusual individual who claims to be part of an experimental US military unit. According to him, a very different military unit called the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. They are a legion of 'warrior monks' with psychic powers who can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls and even kill a goat simply by staring at it.

Unfortunately, the programme's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), has gone missing and Cassidy's mission is to find him. Intrigued by his new acquaintance's far-fetched stories, Wilson impulsively decides to join the search. When the pair track Django to a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), the reporter is trapped in the middle of a grudge match between the forces of Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia of super soldiers.

'The Men Who Stare At Goats' was inspired by author Jon Ronson's non-fiction bestseller of the same name, an eye-opening and often hilarious account of the apparent true story of the US government's attempts to harness paranormal abilities to combat its enemies. Fitting neatly into that 'stranger than fiction' category, author Ronson uncovered in the history of the First Earth Battalion an astonishing and hilarious look at a virtually unknown chapter of American military history.

All of the scenarios, like trying to walk through walls or killing animals by staring at them, are taken from various different experiments that were actually undertaken by the army or the CIA throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s. 'What were they thinking?' is the immediate question most cinemagoers will ask when faced with such an outrageous storyline - when they're not laughing themselves silly, that is.

With a great bunch of actors, and a tale so unusual it was bound to excite attention, debut director Grant Heslov only needs to pace the action properly to elicit belly laughs at regular intervals - which he does with skill. When journalist Wilson heads to Iraq to find the big story in an effort to impress his wayward wife, this tale of mind-bending reality turns into an adult road trip in search of the elusive Django - a modern version of the hunt for Kurtz in 'Apocalypse Now', but with laughs.

Clooney shines as the veteran who believes he learned how to fight wars from a distance - and, in the process, pass through walls and kill the enemy with his mind. He also found these powers were noticeably enhanced when he listened to classic rock - intro a number of refrains of iconic band Boston's anthemic 'More Than A Feeling' as his personal soundtrack. There are a few comparisons to a previous Clooney black humour Iraq war vehicle, 'Three Kings', but this one does play up the slapstick and cheap laughs more.

Jeff Bridges, another actor who rarely puts a foot wrong, is great fun as the hippie-style covert operator with braided hair and a cosmic line of chatter - not a million miles from his legendary incarnation as 'The Dude' in that famous Coen Brothers outing. Kevin Spacey rounds out the acting class as a Donald Rumsfeld type intent on 'making America safe any way possible'.

The film does run thin on laughs in the final quarter and the storyline suffers from being wrapped up a little too neatly, but, overall, 'The Men Who Stare At Goats' confirms what we already knew: war is hell, even for stoned-out wackos...