Classy and memorable

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2007)

We live in an age when movies dealing with topics such as these must feature likable heroes and outlandish violence to keep the audience entertained, yet here is a movie that asks us not to sympathize with its protagonist - but merely to understand him and to appreciate what he believes in.
Edward Wilson believes in America, and he believes in the sanctity of his government and its commitment to bettering the lives of its people. The Good Shepherd tells of how he helped to form what eventually became known as the Central Intelligence Agency, and studies the negative effect it has on his private life.
This film's director, Robert De Niro, shares Edward's passion for the CIA  he has been working on developing this film for at least nine years. The emotional and intellectual drive of the sort of men who would sacrifice so much for their country is what interests De Niro, and it's what gives the film a center. Here he has crafted a remarkably classy and well-observed (albeit fictionalized) "what-if?" chronicling the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency and the people who contributed to its formation.
Edward Wilson is not a real person, and since there have never been any definitive files released divulging into the history of the CIA, De Niro and screenwriter Eric Roth rely upon various external sources to develop the movie. Wilson is most likely based upon James Angleton, for example, who was Head of Counterintelligence for almost two decades.
Regardless of how accurate its historical elements are, the movie's real backbone is the study of the conflict between devotion to one's country and devotion to one's family, which could not be any realer. Edward finds himself sacrificing his relationship with his wife and their son for the sake of his country, and De Niro captures this poignancy in subtle scenes of human conflict. There's no corny exposition or Spielberg-style finale recap (as per the otherwise excellent Munich which Roth wrote)  the movie raises questions carefully about patriotism and obligation to family without dumbing down the material and taking its viewers for granted.
The story may sound grand on paper, but The Good Shepherd is, in many respects, a small-scale epic  it isn't as big, bloated or operatic as one might expect  especially with a supporting cast featuring such renowned actors as Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Joe Pesci, Billy Crudup, John Turturro and even De Niro himself. Nor is it as energized and direct as De Niro's last directorial effort, A Bronx Tale, from 1993.
It is, instead, a rather plain and decisive feature. It's what a film about the mundane day-to-day life of a man in the CIA should be  it doesn't conform to the Hollywood spy-movie formula which requires there to be sequences of action and peril. Matt Damon may have played the ruthless assassin Jason Bourne in the past, but his performance here is a polar opposite: he is an average, boring everyman. And to his credit, the dull, monotonous characteristics work perfectly  he captures the essence of a pencil pusher and as his emotional detachment increases throughout the course of the movie, he becomes almost entirely loathsome.
Some have complained that the movie's dragging pace and its unfocused narrative (the film jumps back and forth freely over the course of the story) are to blame for its lukewarm critical reception. Others have even gone so far as to criticize Damon's performance, complaining that he fails to create any rapport and that there is no connection between the character and the audience. But The Good Shepherd is a film entirely about the sacrifice of one's life for country, and as a study of this sense of blind patriotism it succeeds wonderfully. "Get out while you still have a soul," Edward is told by one of the film's veteran spies. They're the words of an old man who has come to reflect upon his past, questioning the value of his sacrifice over the years. They are also words that come back to haunt Edward towards the end of De Niro's movie, which is one of the best of 2006.