A Movie That Rivals the Italians for Subtlety

Rating: 9/10 (16 April 2008)

DeNiro's movie is, quite simply, poignant and haunting, a look inside the deception and treachery of a world that we all know about and hear about but little comprehend. It sticks vividly in the mind in an era when so many of our freedoms have been compromised and so many government secrets seem to surface to the detriment of the public good. The overall message of the movie, that a "Good Shepherd" of the United States sacrifices his family and (as his father's suicide note said) "a wonderful, full life" in order to play his part as a mere clerk of democracy, resonates despite the intricate and subtle moments that probably eluded the majority of this movie's viewers (as evidenced by the movie's lackluster IMDb star rating).
Although Joe Pesci's portrayal of a Meyer Lansky or a Santo Trifficante Mafioso ousted from Cuba and the exchange of the dollar bill near the end of the film with Damon's allegation of the cardinal sin of democratic parsimony seem trivial and inconsequential, they are actually crucial to understanding the masterpiece DeNiro has created. The former scene demonstrates the morally dubious lengths to which CIA (like God, there is no "the" in front of it) will go to accomplish its aims: guaranteeing immunity to the Mafia in exchange for their help in overthrowing Castro. The latter scene reinforces the point of the former, that Damon and the men he works with use their power to be "good shepherds" for personal gain; the implication of the exchange of the dollar with Ulysses and his henchman is that Damon will give the Russians information about a high-ranking CIA spy inside the KGB in exchange for the murder of his son's fiancée. Edward's (Damon's) treachery here is a thinly-veiled assertion both of Edward's paranoia that the Russians might be placing a mole inside his family and of his desire to protect his son from the torturous world of espionage. And there are scenes like this throughout the film.
I use the above two examples to demonstrate that DeNiro's film will be appreciated by few because of its subtlety. The overarching message that resonates will be communicated to audiences discerning and inattentive, but only the former will truly see what a masterpiece this film is. And it is for this reason only, that the film may have used methods too inaccessible to convey its full message, that it gets a 9 out of 10.