You have to like a movie that ends with this caveat: "The filmmakers ask that no one attempt walking through walls, cloud-bursting while driving, or staring for hours at goats with the intent of harming them ... invisibility is fine."

And so is staring (and often smiling) at the screen for the duration of "The Men Who Stare at Goats," a movie about wacky warriors inspired by people real and reel. It's hard to make a movie about the war on terror that makes people laugh, unless you're Michael Moore.

Or, in this case, George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and Stephen Root.

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'The Men Who Stare at Goats'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Starring: George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges.
• Rating: R for language, some drug content and brief nudity.
• Web site: www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com/

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"The Men Who Stare at Goats" is based on the nonfiction book of the same title by Jon Ronson, who the Boston Globe once called a cross between Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh.

Ronson wrote about a secret military unit that sounds like the stuff of graphic novels or movies -- Army officers who believed soldiers could walk through walls, deliver (literally) killer stares to hamsters or goats, or use "Barney" music to torture prisoners.

Ronson had been inspired by a story about an Army effort to harness ESP and telepathy for warfare and a note at the movie's beginning insists, "More of this is true than you would believe."

The conceit here is that a Michigan reporter named Bob Wilton (McGregor) is sent to interview a local man who claims to have been a psychic spy for the military. Bob doodles "You are crazy" in his notebook but later comes to believe otherwise.

In an effort to escape a failed marriage and to find himself, Bob ends up in Iraq in 2003 tagging along after Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a former member of an experimental military unit called the New Earth Army run by onetime hippie Bill Jango (Bridges).

Bob is drawn into Lyn's world of Jedi warriors and super soldiers pursuing peace with psychic and paranormal powers, not guns and grenades. By the time it's all over, the Jedi mind trick is almost complete and we buy the story's satirical take on warfare.

Grant Heslov ("Good Night, and Good Luck") directs the screenplay by Peter Straughan who took the Ronson book and turned it into a fictional story. It jumps around in time in a sometimes jarring way and sputters near the end, as if no one was sure how to bring down the curtain in a way that would honor characters who captivate us.

With a mustache and procession of hair styles through the years, Clooney is having grand goofy fun, as is Bridges, while McGregor has a twinkle in his eye when he asks, "Did you mean it back there when you said I had some Jedi in me?" The fact that he once played Obi-Wan Kenobi just makes that line all the more delicious.

"The Men Who Stare at Goats" sometimes feels as if it's meandering around the desert like Lyn and Bob, waiting for intuition to divine whether to turn left or right. But it's generally good fun suggesting that a military mind just might be a terrible thing to waste.

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