(2009) In need of a story worth following after his wife leaves him for her editor, Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), journalist for the Ann Arbor Daily Telegram, finds it when he interviews Gus Lacey (Stephen Root), who claims to have been a psychic spy in a top-secret unit of the Army during the '80s.

In May 2003, Bob (also the narrator) goes to war, meeting supersoldier Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), formerly a Jedi Warrior (You may recall President Reagan's enthusiasm for the Star Wars movies) with the US Army's First Earth Battalion, in Kuwait City on his black-ops way to Iraq. Recognizing one of the universe's clues from Bob's doodling, Lyn takes the reporter along, explaining how he became a "remote viewer" with superpowers, such as invisibility and phasing (ability to pass through solid objects).

Sharing the New Earth Army Manual, Lyn provides Bob with the history of the First Earth Battalion's conception in 1980 under Brig Gen Dean Hopgood (Stephen Lang) of Army Intelligence at Fort Bragg, following the Soviets' experiments with paranormal research (e.g., telepathy), and the subsequent formation and training of soldiers in alternative combat (such as using nonlethal weapons) under Lt Col Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), ponytailed with facial hair, who wrote the manual.

Having had a vision after being wounded in Vietnam, Django entered into the New Age scene for half a dozen years before pursuing the mystical question of "how could love and peace help to win wars." Inspired by Jon Ronson's book, director Grant Heslov's war comedy (more than you may want to believe of this is factual), from Peter Straughan's screenplay, imagines a loopy adventure in which a few good men quixotically take on "the dark side."

Bob crosses the border with crazy Lyn ("You were meant to be here with me, Bob") who cracks up the car in the desert while practicing mental cloud bursting. Taken captive by Arab thugs (not al-Qaeda, Lyn assures Bob), the confident Jedi Warrior - let the river of destiny carry you - attempts to teach the newspaperman about fighting "with our minds" by means of "psychic disincentives."

Along with another prisoner, Mahmud Daash, they escape, thanks in part to Lyn's heroics, only to get picked up by a US security detachment that recklessly opens fire on another security company's detail, mistaking them for the enemy in Ramadi.

In a pinch Lyn raises his game to Level 2, using intuition for an instantaneous decision; he drives over an IED. Once again without a vehicle, stranded in the hot emptiness of the desert, Lyn tells a disillusioned Bob that a psychic projection of Bill brought him on this mission.

Back in the early days of the First Earth Battalion, another member of the team, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), whom Lyn quickly learned to despise during ESP sessions, turned against Bill, resulting in the unit chief's dishonorable discharge. Under new leadership, Lyn was assigned to the goat lab where, he confesses to Bob, "I'd used my powers for evil."

Quitting after killing a goat, Lyn received the dim mak or "quivering palm," from which he believes he will eventually die. Fortuitously the appearance of a live goat leads Lyn and Bob to safety and discovery of a nearby psyops base where Larry's in charge.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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