DeNiro tries, but ends up rambling

Rating: 6/10 (11 December 2014)

A fictionalization of the origins of the CIA, DeNiro's second film behind the camera tells the story of Edward Wilson (Damon) who goes from university lad to civil servant to one of the founders of the CIA, which gets its baptism of fire in the heated political climate of the 1960s as it battles the threat of Communism. Of course, the paranoia and intrigue soon envelop Wilson's existence.
Well filmed but less substantial and much slower than it ought to be. 'Good Shepherd' is a great idea, discussing the origins of the CIA, that is ultimately too dragged out and not incisive enough to make it stick. The political intrigue never feels engrossing enough, the tension never consistently palpable enough, the sense of how Wilson's work affects the outer world never feeling present enough. In fact, half of the film is basically a biopic about Wilson, charting his youth and civil service days, as well as his courting and marriage to Jolie's character (this a film that clocks in at over two and a half hours, may I remind you), and though not poorly written, it wears out its welcome well before we get to any secret service business. This is a real slow burner, which not always a bad thing, but here, the pacing sags a lot because of all this perfunctory material that could've been condensed to a few flashbacks or even a vignette, instead of getting to the LeCarre style spy intrigue, which is when the film does pick up, but I really question if Eric Roth's script needed to be this bulky with material.
On the plus side, DeNiro is a very strong director, with some really tense sequences and intrigue in that second half, as well as a very shadowy, almost sepia aesthetic to the film which enhances that sort of 'secret archive footage' look that fits a spy tale rather well. And well, with someone like DeNiro in charge, it goes without saying he roped in a bunch of strong performers, on top of a very restrained Damon, including the likes of Alec Baldwin, Bill Hurt, John Tuturro, Michael Gambon, Joe Pesci and Timothy Hutton. This wasn't a film made with slack, but it seems like the prestige came before the substance. Well performed and mounted, and not without ambition or merits, there is simply no denying where it fell down, and that makes 'Good Shepherd' a noble but still, nonetheless, disappointment all the same.