The Men Who Stare at Goats

Inspired by Jon Ronson's non-fiction bestseller about the bizarre activities of a secret unit in the US military, this eye-opening comedy centres on reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) who stumbles across the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a Special Forces operator on a mind-boggling mission in Iraq. Cassady claims to be a former psychic soldier, part of a squad of 'warrior monks' trained in new age and paranormal techniques who were re-activated post-9/11. Their powers include the ability to read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls, and kill goats just by staring at them. Now the founder of the squad, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) has gone missing, and Cassady's mission is to track him down. Intrigued by these far-fetched stories, Wilton decides to accompany him on his search. After various misadventures they find Django in a clandestine training camp run by renegade psychic Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), where a grudge match is taking place between Django's New Earth Army and Hooper's personal militia. The Men Who Stare at Goats is the feature directing debut of actor-writer-producer Grant Heslov (Good Night and Good Luck), and is produced through Heslov and Clooney's Smokehouse Pictures. British screenwriter Peter Straughan has turned astonishing fact into entertaining fiction, providing some very funny characters along the way.

Sandra Hebron