Interesting film...Damon miscast

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2007)

Mr. De Niro has a fine cast to work with and gets some juicy acting from the supporting characters but in the end this film flops. Matt Damon is miscast in the lead portraying a glum, repressed, shell of a man with the weight of the world, or United States, resting firmly on his narrow shoulders. Damon is a solid actor but he is not at all suited to play this part. It was probably intentional that throughout the film Edward Wilson is never really there and all Damon does in the part is wear the same pinched expression from beginning to end. It would take an actor of great skill and nuance to make this role work and Damon is not that actor. He matches his pained expression with a flat monotone delivery of his lines. Damon delivers a line telling his son how much he loves him at a pivotal moment like he was ordering coffee or reading from a file to John Turturro (who plays his right hand man in the film).
As I watched the film I kept waiting for the next supporting character to show up to give the film a kick. We see great turns from William Hurt, Michael Gambon, Billy Crudup, John Turturro, Alec Baldwin, and Mr. De Niro himself. Even Lee Pace brings some nice menace to his small part. Angela Jolie in a bland wounded wife role does all she can with it and makes you feel something for her as well. I have to wonder why Jolie took this part as it is poorly written and only distracts from the main story. I would assume it was to work with De Niro and the rest of this stellar group and to her credit Ms. Jolie does a lot with the little she was given.
The best part of this story is following Edward Wilson through to the formation of the CIA. This is an interesting and exciting tale but unfortunately the decision was made to tack on a family drama as well. Wilson's wife and the character of Wilson's son are nothing but window dressing to try to provide a little more weight to Damon's character. It was a horrible choice to throw this in and you could easily have summed up their part in this story in a single scene. Edward Wilson after all ignores his family through the first six years of his child's life. We also as an audience are much more interested in the world of secrets and spies Wilson is at the heart of than the details of his failing marriage. It's hard not to feel like our time is just being wasted as we snore through the family drama portions of the film.
There is a lot of effort and information put into creating the world of covert operations in this film and the filmmakers would have been best served sticking with that. They do a great job with introducing us to the language of spies and their "black arts" and to me at least it was clear that's what interested them in making this film in the first place. Throwing in the family drama just leaves you with a bloated 167 minute film that meanders too much. They would have been much better served spending that extra time in the world of spies and the countless stories that were available to them there. I would recommend this film to people that enjoy spy films and have an interest in history and the CIA. It has its rewards in these areas but to some folks I think they will find the film is a confusing drag. There certainly is a great movie to be made about the CIA and this is not it.