Constatnly interesting though rarely engaging

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2007)

Robert De Niro's second directorial outing is a passionate but strenuous account of the earnest rise to the corrupted fall of the US Central Intelligence Agency as seen through one main operatives' decades of experience. The lengthy, detail-specific, at times tedious pace will surely be off-putting to more casual movie-goers and all who are not inherently enthralled by the infinite webs of deception surrounding those in highly secretive governmental positions, though anyone choosing to stick it out may be pleasantly rewarded. Much like his script for Munich, Eric Roth infuses a factual urgency that compliments the fictional characterization to provide viewers with the best of both worlds. Only unlike Munich, The Good Shepherd's ambitious two and a half decade plot-line will bog down many participants with covert operation details at the expense of character intimacy and development (written intentionally that way to portray Matt Damon's ultra-secretive presence, but still suffering a lack of character explanation as a result).
It is only late in the third act that this chronologically impaired film fleshes out some of the more personal and potent themes the labyrinthine story of mistrust and moral ambiguity provides, culminating with a conclusion that will somehow justify much of the muddled exchanges bloating up the run time. With a slightly hypnotic tension, De Niro manages to take all of the paranoid, world-view sentiment that is supposed to frame the C.I.A's often malicious intentions for the audience, and by the end spins it into a cohesive whole centering around this main character's eroding consciousness supplemented by his encroaching apathy.
Thankfully, Damon is able to fulfill his end of the bargain by providing some of his most subtle work yet. It is often hard for me to be engaged by this actor, but lately you can tell he has been working on his game, and it has never been more obvious when watching his huge role as hollow-everyman-with-secrets Edward Bell Wilson. He is able to suppress nearly all of his less believable "charisma" in favor of the cold, calculated exchanges that give his character a more believable persona then what we are used to seeing from him, congratulations on rising to the occasion Mr. Damon. Ultimately the supporting cast gets the job done, but cannot help but feel superfluous when revolving around Damon's principal motivations.
At times, De Niro's equation of secretive governmental policies to the same values that underscored much of his gangster genre work seems to rob individual scenes of some integrity, but for the most part the details are unveiled in a way that will appease both hardened C.I.A. buffs and more casual moviegoers alike. Certainly not for everyone though, those willing to sit through some unnecessary (though historically relevant), insider interpretations of past US events should be rewarded by the eventual formation of something entirely more substantial then the dry and cryptic details the movie frustratingly prides itself upon.