Movie Review: The Good Shepherd

By Colin Maclean Dec 19, 2006, 12:34 GMT

The untold story of the birth of the CIA viewed through the life of a man who believed in America and would sacrifice everything he loved to protect it- is told in The Good Shepherd, an epic drama starring Academy Award winners Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro and directed by Robert De Niro. Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) understands the value of secrecy-discretion and commitment to honor have ...more

It took actor-writer Robert De Niro almost 9 years to bring “The Good Shepherd” to the screen. 

The wait was worth it.

De Niro has matured as a director since his last time out behind the camera (A Bronx Tale). He tells his story slowly and deliberately, giving his characters time to develop. Not unlike Clint Eastwood’s pared back directorial style, DeNiro does not get in the way. Instead, he concentrates on simple, well-composed and visually rich pictures.

The Good Shepherd, fictional but based on fact, tells the story of the founding of the CIA as seen through the eyes of one man. The script by Eric Roth is far more a character study than any attempt at kiss-kiss, bang-bang. 

This is the anti-James Bond movie where covert work is done by fathomless ciphers, language and emotions are pared to the bone and complete dedication is demanded. 

“Trust no one,” agent Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is told and for almost three hours, the lesson is drummed home. One after the other everyone Wilson knows falls to indiscretion or oversight.

In fact, the only time Wilson finds himself in a professional or moral dilemma is when he tries to find a life outside his world of covert operation. The agent’s dedication to his work comes with a price. His (well-founded) cold war paranoia grows, eventually leading him to sacrifice his ideals and even his family. 
 
Edward Wilson grows up an American patrician in a family haunted by the suicide of his father. Studying poetry at Yale, he has his first experience as an operative when he is asked by the FBI to watch his professor – a Nazi sympathizer – at the beginning of World War II.

We follow him as he moves up the ladder of espionage, running covert operations in England during the war. He is the perfect agent, highly intelligent, emotionally withdrawn and believing implicitly in the American values instilled in him by his family. 

When the hostilities end, Wilson is enlisted to be one of the founding agents of the CIA.

He suffers his greatest defeat and eye-opening humiliation, when someone within his own organization warns Castro of the imminent invasion leading to the debacle of the Bay of Pigs.

There are no car chases, gunfire or explosions. De Niro plays down the heroics.

His story is more about the plodding day to day work of the professional spy rendered exciting by the constant threat of sudden death or betrayal. These are people who believe they hold the fate of the world in their hands and, if we are to believe the film, they do. 

Little is made of the CIA’s sorry record of incompetence and misinformation.

Damon is brilliant in what is probably the toughest role in a major film this year. He is directed to play Wilson as impenetrably stolid. Time and again the camera cuts to his blank face as he makes life and death decisions. Damon lets us see just enough emotion to keep his character interesting even as we reject his calculating choices based on his enclosed and misdirected view of what matters in life. 

Damon is on camera for nearly every scene in the movie which relegates all other players to supporting status. But what supporters– Angelina Jolie, William Hurt, Alec Baldwin, Joe Pesci and Billy Crudup.

De Niro is in no hurry and before the film ends you become aware that this is one long movie.

If you can last through the first half hour you will probably invest in De Niro’s gallery of soulless spooks enough to be caught up in his unfolding tale.

Opens wide USA December 22. MPAA: Rated R for some violence, sexuality and language.