Story of the beginning of the CIA

Rating: 8/10 (5 April 2007)

This long BUT never boring film written by Eric Roth & directed by Robert DeNiro has many more good points than bad ones.
It is a very literate screenplay that thankfully has no explosions car crashes & next to no CGI.
There is an absolute minimum of foul language, the few sex scenes are very tastefully handled. There are also very few violent scenes, this tends to make the one torture scene stand out.
The film is mostly fiction ,even though its about real events. (creation of OSS & CIA up to after the Bay of Pigs debacle.
Matt Damon is outstanding as a composite character,It is a hard role to play as his character is very quiet & humourless.(which is the opposite of Matt Damon in real life. Angelina Jolie is is long suffering wife & is also excellent, Most of the major roes are played by name actors. Robert Denirp besides directing portrays a person based on Wild Bill Donavan the man who FDR chose to head the OSS.
Joe Pesci, William Baldwin, William Hurt,are among others who standout.
This is a long movie & except for the very last scenes hold your full interest throughout, The last 20 minutes of so is not as good as earlier scenes, In other words the conclusion is not as memorable as it should of or could of been, The production credits are outstanding all the way.
Ratings, ***1/2 (out of 4) 91 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10)