"The Good Shepherd" is solid, respectable filmmaking, egregiously overlong (a plague this time of year, it seems) but still
highly watchable. It's moody and complicated and tricky, a real movie for grown-ups, as they say. It was directed by Robert De Niro, marking only his second time behind the camera (the first was 1993's "A Bronx Tale") and representing real maturity on his part. De Niro has acted for some of the best filmmakers in Hollywood, and it's nice to see he's learned from them. "The Good Shepherd" may wear out its welcome before it's over, but it has atmosphere and subtext in spades. It begins with the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 before jumping back to 1939 and working its way forward. In the '60s, our protagonist, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), is a quiet, bespectacled CIA agent who is distressed to learn that when the U.S. landed at Cuba, the Soviets already knew their position: Someone within the CIA must have leaked the information.
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