The Men Who Stare At Goats

I'd seen the trailers.

Ewan McGregor and George Clooney as they hit the only rock in a desert full of sand.

I thought the preview was hilarious, but was it just the favourite trick of many film makers as they show you the best bits in the trailers and the rest of the film is only there to stop those prize pieces from bashing into one another?

Isn't that what they did with 'The Breakup' with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston? That was truly crappy.

Well, yes that was what they did in The Breakup, but not in this case.

This film has a bit of everything and begins with a US Army officer staring at a wall and announcing to his Adjutant that he's going into the next office. With that, he stands up without taking his eyes from the area of the wall he's staring at and runs full tilt into it only to bounce off and land on the floor.

We then move on to Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), a journalist at a small-town newspaper who interviews a man claiming he killed his hamster just by looking at it and goes on to try and prove it by showing Bob a video.

Needless to say, Bob is fairly unimpressed as the hamster gets back up. "I thought you said it died."

"It did, but Mum told me not to show you that video," he says. "She told me to show you the one where he gets back up again." He goes on to tell Bob that if he really wanted to see some Psychic ability, he should interview Lyn Cassady, who the man claims, had powers no-one else came close to having.

And there is the premise.

It's about the US Army's research into Psych warfare and goes into remote viewing, a phenomenon where a person can look at what's at a specific location just by being given a set of map co-ordinates or by being given someone's name and finding them, wherever they may be. 

It's real enough. However, sometimes, you are made to wonder...

When Bob's wife leaves him for the editor of the newspaper they work for, Bob decides to get some serious journalism in by going to Iraq. There, he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a trash can salesman and the man that is supposedly the holy grail of psychic soldiers. Trained by the legendary Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) Lyn seems to be a sandwich short of a picnic.

Together they go on a secret mission, the reason for which, Lyn keeps from Bob as they go from one disaster to another, while the history of the group Lyn was part of is revealed.

This film is one of those which, whilst hilarious in places, makes you think as the writers have given just enough reality to not only make the story believable, but make perfect sense. In fact, they even tell you in the beginning that this film contains more truth than you'd think, but that only made me question whether it wasn't all true.

There's no love interest, no damsel in distress, no world to save and yet, this is one of those films that has everything you could want and more besides.

If like me, you're sceptical about whether this is going to be up to much, don't despair. As I said earlier, my own cynicism was pushing me the same way and yet I was far from disappointed and the ending is totally unexpected.

Or is it?

This is one I will definitely want to watch again.