The Good Shepherd
[rating: 3]
Director: Robert De Niro
Starring: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, Robert De Niro
Runtime: 160 min
This debut feature from actor Robert De Niro is a passionate, poetic and highly intelligent film, but is just too long. De Niro delves into the heart of America’s political history, exploring the early years of the Central Intelligence Agency through the eyes of Edward Wilson (a brilliantly stoic Matt Damon). In all of its ambitious 160 minutes, it manages to take on American history from the 1920s to the election of John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs in 1962.
Edward Wilson is a morally conservative, intelligent young man who loves his country. After witnessing his father’s suicide, he follows in his footsteps by joining the Skull and Bones secret society as a Yale undergraduate. His uptight character and shrewd awareness lead to recruitment by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the antecedent of the CIA).
In the meantime he marries the sister of one of his fellow Skull and Bones members, Clover (Angelina Jolie), and raises a son, with whom he has a detached, awkward relationship after Wilson is posted in Berlin for the first 6 years of his life. As an important member of the CIA, he is driven to mistrust by the Red Scare, at the eventual cost of his family and his own ideals.
Jolie is dangerously miscast as the lovelorn, forgotten wife, living up to 50s values of home and family. Yet there is an interesting set of dualities between Edward’s relationship with his father, his son, and various male mentors. These include acclaimed actors Alec Baldwin, Michael Gambon and an impressive Godfather-esque De Niro. The Good Shepherd is a film about the lasting relationships between fathers and sons. Though overly complex, this is surpassed by the rich textures and noir shadows which infiltrate each scene with a haunting poetry.
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