Eugene Weekly : Movie Review : 12.28.06

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The Patriot

The man who helped create the CIA

BY JASON BLAIR

THE GOOD SHEPHERD: Directed by Robert De Niro. Written by Eric Roth. Cinematography, Robert Richardson. Music, Bruce Fowler and Marcelo Zarvos. Starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, Robert De Niro, Michael Gambon, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Joe Pesci and John Turturro. Universal Pictures, 2006. R. 160 minutes.

Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd

You know you're in for an espionage thriller when one man says conspiratorially to another, "The rocking chair is smiling." That, or a film about psychiatric patients. Covert activity is at the heart of The Good Shepherd, the fine if highly complex new film directed by Robert De Niro.

Taking the failed Bay of Pigs invasion as its starting point — particularly the idea that a mole contributed to the mission's failure — The Good Shepherd then forks into two distinct storylines. The first is the story of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), a bright if humorless Yale undergraduate, from Wilson's induction in the Skull and Bones society (1939) until the Cuban invasion in 1961. The second and more compelling narrative is the mole hunt following the invasion, during which the costs of Wilson's long government service are played out to stunning effect.

With the help of other agents (including a fine John Turturro) and a contact at the FBI (Alec Baldwin), Wilson meets one challenge after another, gaining special recognition during WWII. But Wilson ignores several warnings along the way, eventually distancing himself from his family, particularly his wily wife Clover (Angelina Jolie). Compounding these and other worries is the fact that the KGB operative "Ulysses" has taken a serious interest in what makes Wilson tick.

One of the most delightfully paranoid films in years, The Good Shepherd bears the unofficial tagline "trust no one," an apt directive for a movie that's drenched in the theory and practice of intelligence. I read Wilson as an amalgamation of all the hard-working and dedicated men and women who, in the years following WWII, lived with the threat of a growing Soviet empire. As The Good Shepherd regularly points out, all who serve in government — from Wilson's superior (William Hurt) to his British counterpart (Billy Crudup) — are mere clerks to their leader or president. Or, more poetically, they are all "bootmakers to the King."

Deliberately paced and slow in places but never actually dull, The Good Shepherd is a rich and intelligent tale of an important era of our history. Period details are wonderfully evoked — there are more fedoras and trench coats here, for example, than at a convention of insurance salesmen. Packages are passed and code words exchanged with ease and calm professionalism. More than once, betrayer and betrayed change places, depending on which country they're in or which operation is underway. De Niro has made The Good Shepherd with confidence and a high degree of skill.

Damon gives a dogged performance as a man who knows too much. His face has aged since Good Will Hunting; it's no longer a stretch for him to assume the gravitas of a CIA agent. My only real criticism is that very few of The Good Shepherd's principals, with the exception of perhaps Jolie, go through any sort of awakening. As such, Wilson's motivation — which seems to me his craving for approval from father-figures — is never fully explored. I certainly don't need a psychological profile. Just a little humanity from this impossibly good citizen.