"The Godfather" meets "The Conversation"

Rating: 8/10 (26 December 2007)

This is an ambitious film covering over thirty years in the life of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) from his student days at Yale until his heading counterintelligence at the CIA. The story begins in 1961 with Wilson's following reports on the CIA-supported Bay of Pigs disaster and its immediate outcome. The tale is told by interweaving flashbacks of Wilson's life and career with the unfolding and aftermath of the events in Cuba, as received by the CIA.
A puzzle that propels the film is solving the mystery of a leak from a high-level source about the location of the land invasion of Cuba that was crucial in contributing to the Bay of Pigs failure. A key element in determining the source of that leak is a grainy black and white film that mysteriously turns up under Wilson's door. The high-tech tools and deductive reasoning that are brought to bear in analyzing this piece of film fascinate and remind one very much of the analysis of the audio tape that so kept one's attention in "The Conversation."
A theme that runs throughout is the effect that Wilson's job as a high-level intelligence agent has on him and his family. He obsessively observes the secrecy requirements of his job; he does not share anything with his family. His several year stint with the OSS in Germany after the war, away from his family, causes a rift in his marriage that is never really healed. When he comes back from Germany his wife (Angelina Jolie) suggests they sleep in separate rooms until they can get to know each other again. But physical separation is not the only difficulty in the marriage. To say that Wilson is rather restrained and emotionally remote is an understatement. One questions whether such personalities as Wilson's are attracted to top secret intelligence work or rather are the result of such work. In Wilson's case there is a hint that it is the latter. Anyway, Wilson comes to suffer the same fate of becoming isolated and friendless as Michael Corleone in "The Godfather," for the same reasons of having to keep his day job a secret and being unable to trust anyone. Wilson is the ultimate patriot and he pays a heavy price for it.
Given the withdrawn nature of Wilson's personality Matt Damon is not called upon for bravura here, but he does skillfully create a distinctive persona. Machael Gambon is particularly good in his brief appearances.
Who knows what the truth is, but this film creates an aura of believability. I just hope there is not much truth to the Skull and Bones sequences at Yale - one does not like to think that in their early maturity our best and brightest future leaders behave like pre-adolescent boys.
Those who like intricate, intelligent and deliberately paced spy thrillers will not be disappointed with this.