About half-way through The Men Who Stare at Goats, it begins to dawn on you that this is a film that doesn’t know what it is. Is it a comedy or a satire? If it’s a comedy, why is there this political overtone? And if it’s satire, why so ridiculous?

We follow the development of psychic soldiers. Men, who are trained to use their superpowers to detect the location of missing generals, non-lethally disarm combatants, and murder goats with their eyes. Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a retired Jedi Warrior, is on a mission in Iraq, followed by the intrepid reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor). Along the way, we discover how the hippies infiltrated the army, why Angela Lansbury is an asset to military intelligence, and also about the hideous lengths to which American soldiers mistreat prisoners.

That’s right: it is a film with a serious message. When you’ve cast George Clooney and Kevin Spacey, it has to have one. But trying to make a point about torture in the midst of such outlandishness merely trivialises instead of satirising. No one was taken in by the opening statement, “More of this is true than you would believe.”

Of course, the film cannot be condemned because the concept is inappropriate. It can be condemned when it ruins the comedy. It was quite funny in parts. But once it turned into a lecture by a German explaining the antics of Charlie Chaplin,  only those not already acquainted with the comic potential of spiking the water supply with LSD will be laughing by the end.