The Spy Who Left the Rest of Us in the Cold

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2007)

As a filmmaker, Robert DeNiro shows the influence of his generation of great directors like Scorsese and Coppola with this epic-length 2006 film. In fact, there is a certain structural similarity to "The Godfather" in DeNiro's careful unfolding of the time-spanning story penned by screenwriter Eric Roth. The plot focuses on a fictionalized account of the first twenty years of the CIA as seen through the experiences of one agent named Edward Wilson, an intentionally cryptic study in excessive self-control which makes him ideal for his career. Ironically, the main problem with the film is the stoic coldness of the central character for which DeNiro and Roth cannot seem to find a voice that would make the story resonate. There is little sense of a personal journey for Wilson, even though there are hints of it beginning with his father's suicide, which is used as a leitmotif throughout the story.
Another frustration of the film is the constant time-jumping between the fallout over the failed Bay of Pigs mission in 1961 and key episodes in Wilson's earlier years. The technique doesn't make the drama any more interesting than it really is. Unfortunately there is no getting around the fact that despite the handsome production detail, the movie is a slog at 248 minutes and quite often, an amazing bore. DeNiro has assembled a can't-miss cast, including himself as a pre-CIA operative, but for the most part, they are stranded by a script consisting of coded exchanges and predictable dialogue, the latter most prevalent in the domestic scenes. Matt Damon does all he can as the poker-faced Wilson, but he is given little latitude to elicit empathy for his character.
While she starts out with her fiery persona intact, Angelina Jolie has a progressively smaller role as Wilson's increasingly embittered wife Clover merely defined by how shut off she is from Wilson's clandestine profession. DeNiro inexplicably does not age either Damon or Jolie with any conviction over the course of the story, and there is an oddly unsettling dynamic when they are shown as the parents of a fully grown son. Better among the huge cast are William Hurt as a lifelong mentor; Tammy Blanchard as Wilson's true love, a hearing-impaired coed with whom he is reunited years later; Billy Crudup as a rather fey British counterspy; Alec Baldwin as a covert FBI agent; and John Turturro as Wilson's no-nonsense colleague. The 2007 DVD is short on extras, as it just contains seven deleted scenes of little additional interest. Unsurprisingly, the taciturn DeNiro does not offer a director's commentary here.