Protection, loyalty and secrecy are the themes of Robert De Niro''s The
Good Shepherd , a sophisticated look
at the beginnings of the Central Intelligence
Agency. Matt Damon heads a stellar cast with his one of his best performances,
and De Niro shows that he has the talent to make great films. Unfortunately,
The Good Shepherd is only a good film thanks to the overly long running
time and consistently slow pacing.
Damon stars as Edward Wilson, a brilliant young poet who is accepted into the
secret Skull and Bones society and soon thereafter recruited into the world
of espionage. As Hitler gains power in Europe, Wilson and his cohorts become
masters of discovering the truth through any means necessary, even if that means
losing touch with everything you hold dear. Wilson returns home after the war
is over to live with the wife he doesn''t love (Angelina Jolie) and the child
he doesn''t know, but his personal war is never over - the Cold War is starting,
and a whole new kind of intelligence agency is needed.
De Niro pulls off nearly everything with the picture. Damon is fabulous as
he brings to life a tortured soul who perhaps has feelings but keeps them so
bottled up inside he never once shows them to the world. He gets better as the
movie goes on as he allows his character to become more complex with every passing
scene. One of the final shots, where he''s hugging his devastated son, is absolutely
classic - he may care for his son, but does he actually feel his son''s pain
or simply understand that his son is upset? Damon is also backed by an impressive
secondary cast, which includes Jolie (who is surprisingly not in the movie as
much as you''d expect), Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon, William Hurt,
Joe Pesci and De Niro. Surprisingly, it is De Niro and Pesci, who, in cameo
roles, are the least engaging.