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THE GOOD SHEPHERD Send This Review to a Friend
We know how strong Robert De Niro can be as an actor, and now we have reason to give him new respect for his latest stint as a director, so vividly evident in his “The Good Shepherd,” with a sophisticated screenplay by Eric Roth. For good measure, De Niro also turns up as a top U.S. intelligence honcho, who gives one of the film’s most important little speeches, a confidential warning to beware of those who might abuse the power about to be given to those who head the newly created C.I.A, a post-war successor to the O.S.S of World War II.
Dense and more cerebral than action-packed, “The Good Shepherd” takes a hard, intimate look at the lives of C.I.A. agents, their ruthless intrigues, dedication to the demands made upon them and the atmosphere of distrust that develops in a clandestine world with spies and traitors, agents and counter-agents. While the film doesn’t overtly assault the C.I.A on political grounds, there is enough evidence of the kind of goings on in the Cold War era to allow one to make up one’s own mind about how you feel regarding the role the organization is depicted as playing in the Bay of Pigs misadventure in Cuba and ruthlessness elsewhere.
This is a thoroughly engrossing film, thanks in no small measure to the creepy, understated tone that De Niro maintains throughout, eerily underscored with the unsettling, murmuring music by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler. De Niro’s method of keeping a quiet tone is so much more effective than films that thunder in the opposite direction. And the tone is consistent.
The film also works as a result of the steely performance by Matt Damon, the super agent around whom the plot is constructed. He plays Edward Wilson, an up-tight, undemonstrative, stoical all-work, little-play type whose life mirrors what the film is attempting to say. The plot flits back and forth in time, covering Wilson’s school days at Yale, the persons he meets in the young boy network that morphs into old boy, his service in World War II, and the later Cold War period that involves the Bay of Pigs fiasco and brings in clips of John Kennedy at the time. Of course, the film oversimplifies. The Bay of Pigs operation didn’t fail because someone gave secret information.
Wilson’s personality and the all-consuming nature of his secretive work make a shambles of his personal life, including his inability to pay proper attention to his young son--there are more problems when the son grows up-- and his marriage to Margaret Russell, which wasn’t for love but because she got pregnant seducing him. As her brother said, he was expected to do the right thing. Angelina Jolie plays Margaret, or Clover as she is called in the early days, with unabashed sexiness at first and than unabashed angst and bitterness as her world crumbles.
The film, which is so well made that it doesn’t seem as if it runs for 157 minutes, has a colorful array of characters handled by a strong cast that includes, Tammy Blanchard, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, Keir Dullea, Michael Gambon, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Joe Pesci, and numerous others. John Turturro is particularly effective as Wilson’s aide and chilling in a scene of torture involving a Russian suspect.
Excellent as spy yarn entertainment, “The Good Shepherd” is also penetrating but still leaves the feeling that it is just scratching the surface of the C.I.A. machinations. Even while portraying people who are supposed to be heroic, the tone is distinctly anti-hero. It is certainly among the better made and more interesting films of 2006. A Universal Pictures release.
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