Doing the wrong things for the right, even honorable, reasons is the heart of the conflict in THE GOOD SHEPHERD, director Rober De Niro’s history of the CIA as told through the story of one of its founders. The tale is fictional, but the events, from the fall of the Third Reich to the Kennedy-era Cold War are real, and their fine-tuned depiction gives an air of both gravitas and authenticity to this cautionary tale.
The protagonist is Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), and whether or not he is a hero is very much a matter of opinion. Like the best spies, he is a gray man, unremarkable as a person even while wielding the power of life and death, literally, for people and for policy, official and other. It begins with the betrayal of the Bay of Pigs and unfolds Wilson’s life in flashback leading up to another betrayal for reasons that are more personal, but just as compelling. His life, then and now, is one of treachery, double-crosses, and so many lies told in the name of the truth that the very concept of what truth is becomes more a commodity than an absolute.
The script is as meticulous in its detail as Wilson is in his work. It plays along the two tracks of his life. The personal struggles he has with forsaking his true love to marry the debutante (Angelina Jolie) he impregnated, and the professional beginning with another less than savory act, when he is recruited at Harvard into the OSS, CIA’s precursor, in a gambit that involves a beloved professor (Michael Gambon) whose loyalties are questionable.
Precise, intelligent, and absorbing on an intellectual as well as gut level, it portrays a world of suspicion where emotions are a worse enemy than any conventional combatant could be. It’s also spiked with terrific supporting performances, including one from De Niro himself as a Naval Intelligence office rotting from the feet up, and John Turturro as a Soviet defector who may or may not be the real thing. The DVD offers only deleted scenes in the way of bonus features, and that is disappointing considering the wealth of history covered in the film. But those scenes do amplify key moments in the film and are as good as any included in the almost 2½-hour running time.
DVD shortcomings aside, this is the sort of film that lends itself to multiple viewings, if only to be able to shift back and forth between scenes, the better to appreciate the clever foreshadowings with which the script is rife. And to savor one of Matt Damon’s best performances,low key, but always in the moment, his character always plotting several moves ahead even when attending a dinner party. It makes for one of the most brutal moments on film, although the violence isn’t physical, it’s the simple declaration to a Mafia guy (Joe Pesci) with whom CIA wants to do business about who owns the United States and who doesn’t. Like the rest of the performance, it is spare and it is dead serious in the most chilling way possible for its implications and delivered without indulging in the slightest cheap emotionalism.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD is a first-rate spy film told in a way that is anti-intuitive and therefore all the more effective for ringing so very, you’ll pardon the world, true. You’ll never read a headline in quite the same way again after seeing it.
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