Directed by Grant Heslov

Based on the book by British journalist Jon Ronson on his investigation a few years ago into a section within the US military which was looking into the use of paranormal methods in warfare, this is a sporadically funny fictionalised account which initially raises laughs but sinks up to its hubcaps in the sands of mediocrity once the fictionalisation takes over and it becomes a desert caper.

Flashbacks into 70s madcap experiments into paranormal aggression take us back into an odd time when America was poised between hippydippyness and hard-nosed imperialism. Hard to know which was the more zany. Jeff Bridges, delightful as ever, is the man who, noticing that a high proportion of new recruits into Vietnam were pathologically unable to shoot to kill, suffered some kind of conversion and decided to try to utilise these inner powers towards a different kind of warfare. The title refers to one particular wheeze which attempted to prove that by staring at a living creature, in this case a goat, one could kill it by sheer will. The abilities acquired by various borrowings from mediation, yoga, martial arts and cod science are referred to as Jedi Skills. So far so amusing, and, according to Ronson, so true.

But this is truly a film of 2 halves. Turning it all into a fiction weakens the impact - we don't have any real way of telling the unbelievable real things from the weak-ish made up joke things, and that's quite important. So the tempo slows horribly once the story kicks in and we spend a lot of time alone with a hapless George Clooney and Ewan McGregor in a jeep in the desert. Both go into jokey overdrive, and it's not pretty. To begin with, McGregor's made-up character is totally unconvincing, as are his actions. The satirical edge, always a touch blunt, is lost completely. Taking all this stuff into Iraq (why? The book does no such thing, so I'm not sure why this direction was taken) makes it all the more necessary to have a core of bitterness, anger, something. Am I the only one to feel a little uneasy at jokes made around kidnapping and violence in Iraqi streets? If the script had been true satire, had gone for it hard and ruthless and brutal, it might have worked, but this is all softened up with stereotype good and bad Muslims and nobody dead. I wasn't laughing. Nor was I much interested at the end by the comedic gung-ho finale. Clooney CAN do comedy, but only when he plays it straight. Here everyone's mugging away, far too pleased with themselves. Just laughing at the US army because it's daft won't do. In the end it's no MASH or Dr Strangelove - more 'Allo 'Allo.

Seen at Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, 3 November 2009