“More of this is true than you would believe.”
Artwork by Mia Nogueira
The title of director Grant Heslov’s (who came out of the woodwork after winning an Oscar for his screenwriting for Good Night and Good Luck, 2005) new movie seems to reflect the satirical joy ride on which it takes its audience. The all-star cast which is composed of Ewan McGregor (Angels & Demons 2009) George Clooney (Ocean’s Thirteen 2007), Jeff Bridges (Iron Man 2008), and Kevin Spacey (Shrink 2009), breathe life into their characters with ease and with obvious chemistry and charm.
McGregor’s character, Bob Wilton, is a newly divorced journalist who, in an effort to somehow compensate for his wife leaving him for another man, sets off on a dangerous expedition to Kuwait in order to cover the Iraq War. This leads Wilton to meet Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who explains to Wilton that he is a Jedi Warrior, a former member of the New Earth Army created by the government to be psychic spies. Wilton takes the new information with a straight face, motivated only by the chance of hitching a ride with Cassady over the border; he listens as Cassady explains how the New Earth Army was assembled. As much as Clooney’s character is one tequila shot away from being considered a crazy drunk – rambling about his former solider days – one can’t help but want to believe him. Which is exactly why this movie is enjoyable.
The movie flashes back to the 1970s when Bill Django, a Vietnam veteran who goes on a “spiritual” journey to decode the vision he had had during a mission in Vietnam. Django’s research (which involved a lot of the activities that were popular during the hippie movement) birthed the New Earth Army philosophy. The director’s impeccable skills at story telling draws one in so deep it’s as if these events happened as realistically as George Bush’s re-election or Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV video awards.
As a young recruit, Cassady shows great promise in his abilities, and quickly moves up the ranks when he telepathically locates a missing solider. Enter the villain, Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), whose jealousy of Cassady leads him to the Dark Side. After a mishap involving illegal chemicals, Hooper accuses Django of slander and gets the New Earth Army gets shutdown.
In the present, Wilton and Cassady become stranded in the desert when Cassady accidentally runs his rental car into a rock. The pair hitch a ride with a group of men in a truck, but end up getting kidnapped when the men turn out to be extremists. Luckily they escape when a private security firm rescues them. After getting lost in the dessert they are found by the newly revived New Earth Army who are using the Dark Side of The Philosophy to torture captives by putting them in a dark room with flashing lights and playing the Barney theme-song repetitively. There are a few adult-themed jokes but the plot-line is a straight forward one and doesn’t lose laughs along the way.
Afterward there are hilarious antics involving LSD (the main reason the movie is rated R) and a daring rescue of a heard of goats.
This movie was too unbelievably believable to not believe. If you squint, there is a message hidden in Wilton’s character growth about believing in yourself in times of adversity, but one can’t help but think this is some outrageous concoction mixed together by a half-crazed journalist who spent too much time in the sun.
It’s not.
Or, as the movie warns, “More of this is true than you would believe.”
