The Men Who Stare at Goats

Year: 2009

Actors: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges

Duration: 94 min

2003. After a series of upheavals in his life including his wife leaving him for his boss, Bob Wilton, a reporter for the Ann Arbor Daily Telegraph, decides he has to prove himself in his life. So he gets himself reassigned to the Iraq War file, based in Kuwait City. While trying to figure out a way to get into Iraq proper for that big war story, Bob meets by chance Lyn Cassady, a US military contractor trying to drum up business. However, Bob recognizes Lyn's name as part of a story from Bob's past reporter life. The story's interviewee, Gus Lacey, claimed he had psychic powers, and could do amazing things just using his mind, among other things travel through space, and kill, which he learned in the 1980s as part of a top secret military unit based at Fort Bragg, its members trained to be "psychic spies". At the time, Bob thought Gus was just plain crazy. Lyn, according to Gus, was the most gifted psychic in the unit. For various reasons, Lyn, who discloses that he is on an undisclosed mission, feels that Bob was sent to Kuwait to join him, while Bob feels that Lyn is a way into Iraq for that major story. Through their adventures, Lyn divulges to Bob that the unit was developed by a soldier named Bill Django, who, in his military sanctioned research, went from being a nuts and bolts soldier into a new age hippie. Bill created the unit, the New Earth Army, based on west coast based new age theories to train super soldiers - Jedi warriors - who looked at the military's function in a new way, their mission to achieve world peace through love and gentleness inherent within most soldiers. Lyn later tells of one unit member Larry Hooper, who wanted to take over the unit in his own vision, this coup by discrediting unit leaders such as Bill and Lyn. As Lyn and Bob embark on Lyn's undisclosed mission (if there really is one), Bob hopes that Lyn's psychic powers will be able to get them out of the continual scrapes they find themselves. Bob also hopes to get that big story which he believes will be his salvation. Ultimately, Bob may find salvation of another more important kind.—Huggo

Genre: Action   Comedy   War