| Movie DescriptionThe film follows Ann Arbor Daily Telegram reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor), who one day interviews Gus Lacey (Stephen Root), a man who claims to have psychic abilities. Bob shrugs Lacey off as crazy. Soon after, Bob's wife leaves him for his editor. Bob, out of anger, flies to Kuwait to report on the Iraq War. However, he stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when he meets retired Special Forces operator, Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Lyn reveals that he was part of an American army unit training psychic spies (or "Jedi Warriors"), trained to develop a range of parapsychological skills including invisibility, remote viewing, cloud bursting, walking through walls, and intuition. The back story is told mainly through flashbacks.
In 1972, U.S. Army officer Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) accidentally fell out of a UH-1 Iroquois "Huey" helicopter in the Binh Duong province of Vietnam, landing in a muddy field. Django was okay but his M-16A1 rifle jammed. The rest of Bill's unit lands, and they soon notice in front of their position is a pile of dead American troops. His men look at them aghast, and a soldier next to Django opens fire, yelling wildly. Suddenly, the enemy opens fire on them, shooting a soldier to Django's left. Django looks around and notices no one is returning fire when a lone Viet Cong soldier runs across the field in front of their position. He then yells at his troops to open fire. As they open fire, Django notices every soldier aims high, missing the enemy soldier. Apparently, they instinctively had not wanted to kill another human being. Django would later come across a study that stated only 15-20% of fresh soldiers shot to kill. The rest purposely missed, didn't fire at all, or pretended to be busy doing something else. The Viet Cong then fires at Django, hitting him in the chest. A medic quickly attends to him. As he lay there wounded, the Viet Cong (who was a woman) appeared before him in a vision and said "their gentleness is their strength."
While in a military hospital, Django decides to conduct a fact finding mission to explore alternative combat tactics, and the military agrees to finance him. He winds up in California for six years, and is shown "studying" various human potential movements: Naked Hot Tub Encounter Sessions, in Santa Rosa; Primal Arm-Wrestling, in Sacramento; the Beyond Jogging Movement, in Stockton; Higher Essence Colonic Irrigation Therapy, in Monterey; and The Whole Man Movement, in Auburn. In 1980, Django is shown entering Fort Bragg, with long braided hair and a third eye painted on his forehead.
Django is soon shown recruiting or even converting high-ranking Army officers to his cause. He is then shown receiving and training members of his new unit, the New Earth Army. Two of Django's best recruits were Lyn Cassady and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who developed a lifelong rivalry because of their opposing views of how to implement the New Earth Army philosophy; Lyn wanted to emphasize the positive side of the teachings, whereas Larry was more interested in the dark side of the philosophy. Cassady was brought to the unit via General Hopgood when he crashes several Air Force computers at Area 51 in Nevada, and Hooper was brought to the unit through General Hopgood when Hooper bends Hopgood's fork at a party.
In the early 2000s Bob and Lyn embark on a new mission in Iraq, where they are kidnapped by a criminal gang. They escape with fellow kidnapping victim Mahmud Daash (Waleed Zuaiter) and get rescued by a private security firm led by Todd Nixon (Robert Patrick), in charge of the Army Small Business Office, but get caught up in a firefight between Todd's security firm and a rival security firm; this would later be known as the "Battle of Ramadi." Mahmud, Bob and Lyn escape from the firefight and go to Mahmud's house, which has been shot up by soldiers. From there Bob and Lyn leave to continue on Lyn's vague mission involving a vision he had of Bill Django. |
