The Good Shepherd

If you're out to see a movie soon, this is one that should be on the top of your list. An all-star cast and an intriguing story isn't all that this movie has. It has some great performances from both Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie that are likely to get some award nominations.

I won't give any spoilers, I'll just give my background and overall opinion. When I saw the commercials, I thought it seemed interesting, but not interesting enough to get me out of my seat right now to go see it. It just didn't seem to have anything totally different than other movies, other than the combination of actors. Since I just got to see it anyway, I realized that it's one of those movies that ends up being better than you think it would be.

Matt Damon, as always, plays a good serious guy who's smart, savvy, and dedicated to his job. It kind of reminded me of his characters in The Departed and the Bourne Identity, except it's in a different situation and setting. His performance in this role was very fitting and believable.

Angelina Jolie surprisingly worked well with this role. In the commercials I thought she was a little too wild compared to Matt Damon's calm character, but she really brought out the emotion of a wife who felt shut out and didn't have a complete relationship with and understanding of her husband.

Robert DeNiro of course was great. It was a nicely added touch to an already good movie.

While I wouldn't say it's as factual as the History Channel, I think the subject of the movie does put good insight on the history of the CIA. I think people who are into government/politics and history would like the storyline. It does focus quite a bit on his family relationship and how it is affected by his job in the CIA, and I'm sure any couple who has been in a similar situation would understand it.

Overall, the movie was better than I thought and I would recommend it to movie-goers, especially those who like suspense and any of the main characters.

Excellent.

The good shepherd is an excellent film. The reason this film was dubbed the "Godfather of spy movies" is because ala the "Godfather" De Niro uses real life situations involving the CIA and blends them together creating a story around the lead character played by Matt Damon. In addition,several great performances in character parts complement Damon's performance, notably Michael Gambon and John Turturro were both superb. You shouldn't view this film expecting to be blown out of your seats, it is deep, and requires strict attention to detail. My wife and I viewed this film in a packed movie house and we were very certain that half the people in the audience didn't understand or appreciate what they had just seen. I am not saying you need to be of great intellect to enjoy this film, but one of the things De Niro manages to do is bring back a thinking man's drama that is often not seen in today's attention deficit, shoot them up, bang – bang movies. This film makes it obvious that Directors Bertolucci and Leone have left a huge impression on De Niro and the result is a movie that both would be proud of.

After enduring trailer after trailer with endless stings of explosions, ridiculous CG-assisted stunts and mindless action, I felt very rewarded with an intelligent and intriguing film that defies the status quo of bigger and louder is better.

The Good Sheperd doesn't insult your intelligence, it stimulates it, sometimes confuses it, and forces you to look several layers beneath the surface. It feels like a throwback to another era of films when the complexity of a character was of greater importance than spectacle.

De Niro took a page from his producer's best work, Francis Ford Coppola, emulating films like The Godfather, The Conversation and Apacalypse Now. The drama rises not from the usual blatant conventional devices but rather by raising questions because of what we're not told and not shown. It requires a great deal of courage to use this style as films have gravitated more and more toward assuming the average moviegoer is of substandard intelligence. The scope of the film is enormous, yet the point of view is narrowly focused to be seen through the eyes of one man. There are a dozen of subplots, but all are carefully tied into the through-line of the story to match the main character's progression.

The film may require some understanding of American history from WWII through the Kennedy administration. It starts with the later years of the story, The Bay of Pigs debacle, and traces the steps that lead to it, one of the more embarrassing moments in the history of U.S. foreign policy. I found it a bit annoying that Matt Damon's character, Edward Wilson, barely seemed to age in the film while others around him did (the best way to determine his age is whether he's wearing wire-rimmed or horn-rimmed glasses), but it didn't ruin the film for me.

Overall though, definitely one of the best films of 2006. A rare film that makes you want to think and understand, rather than forget.

"The Good Shepherd" is my second best film of 2006. A lot of people who have seen it will think differently and I can understand that. This film is not for everyone, but the viewers who have a love for US History, The Cold War, CIA, Espionage, or Spy films should be pleased with "The Good Shepherd." It is very subtle, but extremely effective.

"The Good Shepherd" is told from a series of flashbacks during a two week mission to find the significance of a document that was sent to the house of Edward Wilson by an anonymous person(s). We see the rise of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) from his ranks as a Skull and Bones member to the head of the Counter Intelligence section of CIA.

Robert De Niro directs this epic, near-masterpiece, of the creation of CIA through one mans eyes, Edward Wilson. Matt Damon gives a great performance and one of his best along with "The Departed" and "Good Will Hunting." Damon plays Edward Wilson who starts off as a Yale graduate and Skull and Bones member. He is recruited by an FBI Agent (Alec Baldwin) to spy on his poetry professor Dr. Fredrick's (Michael Gambon), who is believed to have set up a Nazi organization and is enlisting students and faculty members. Edward agrees to spy on his professor after some talking into and gets the names of the people Dr. Fredrick's has enlisted, which leads to his firing on the basis of his political beliefs.

On Deer Island (Skull and Bones retreat) he meets Margaret "Clover" Russell (Angelina Jolie) who seeks out Edward immediately and finds something about him quite intriguing. Matt Damon plays "the man made out of stone" giving little to no emotional reaction to anything and just about everything. Edward Wilson is a man of few words, but he chooses wisely what few words he speaks.

Edward Wilson falls in love with Laura, played wonderfully by Tammy Blanchard- a deaf women- but their relationship comes to an abrupt end as Edward finds that Margaret has become pregnant with his child and Edward is to do what is expected of him. This means he will have to leave Laura and marry Clover. A week after their marriage Edward has to go overseas during WWII, mostly working out of Germany, but is sent to London and joins the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), by General Bill Sullivan (Robert De Niro).

After the war Germany is crumbling and Edward Wilson is climbing the ranks garnering more and more trust. The Soviets are now looking to acquire as many scientists as possible. In Berlin, Edward Wilson meets his adversary, codename "Ulysses," and the back and forth battle between Wilson (His codename is "Mother") and Ulysses is something to really behold and some of the best scenes in the film take part during their back and forth battle of disinformation and counter intelligence and deception and infiltration of spies sent into one another's operations and then each adversary takes out these spies, then sends the "message" that these spies were found and disposed of. Was that confusing? Neither seems to gain much of any ground on each other until the end of the film where Ulysses sends a spy into Wilson's Agency and get's valuable information from someone very close to Edward Wilson. This information ruins the "Bay of Pigs" invasion which turns out to be a costly loss and damaging defeat. Wilson has to make a tough decision between his family and his country.

Edward Wilson was a man of selflessness who put his entire life into his country and did what he could do with his son. He makes sacrifices for his country and for his son. He sacrifices his time and relationship with his family for his country. He sacrifices his true love with Laura and marries Margaret for his son. If you were going to sum up Edward Wilson it probably would be best to use the term "selfless." Everything he does is for his country and the future of it. We never see him do much of anything for his own personal joy. This kind of behavior leads to a marriage that crumbles and falls apart. He plays the protector and is forced to do things such as have people killed and interrogated for the greater good. All over an idea- Communism.

I loved it. It may take a few viewings to fully understand the complexities of this film, but it is well worth it and an intense film with some great action and conversation throughout the film.

9.7/10

Spy movies really aren't my thing. The slow ones I can respect when well-made, and the more explosive ones can be fun if they have good action set pieces, but I don't tend to go out of my way to watch spy-related films. But The Good Shepherd looked interesting because of the strength of the cast, and because it's one of two movies Robert De Niro's directed. He also has a supporting role here, and it's hilarious how almost every time he's on screen, he's sitting down. If a director wants a certain character to always be in a comfortable position, who can protest?

Comparing it to A Bronx Tale, it's also a bit funny how that one feels like it pulls a little from Goodfellas, and The Good Shepherd pulls a bit from another recent (at the time) Scorsese film: The Aviator. It's got the same kind of glossy look and color scheme, and it's not surprising to find out they both had the same cinematographer.

Look, rambling aside, The Good Shepherd is quite competent as a spy film, and it's interesting (if a little heavy-handed) how it uses a story that takes place between 1939 and the early 1960s to reflect all the U. S. conflict of the 2000s. Outside of acting, De Niro is politically outspoken, so I can see why this story would've appealed to him at this time.

The Good Shepherd is just too long though, being 167 minutes in length. It drags at times, but again, going back to the whole me and spy movie thing, I often feel like these sorts of movies drag. I guess the huge runtime here just compounds that. It's nicely presented, and the performances are generally good. I felt a bit mixed on Matt Damon in the lead role, but that might be more of a writing problem. He's a character whose journey should be interesting, and kind of is on paper, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

So, the film looks and feels good, it has thematic weight, and features a good cast, but it's also too long, narratively dull, and sometimes heavy-handed. It's interesting, and would be a recommendable oddity within De Niro's body of work if it had been 30 to 45 minutes shorter; that's really the biggest hurdle to enjoying The Good Shepherd, rather than merely having a decent amount of respect for it.