thePeanutBloggery

The abundance of previews for action thrillers before the film is misleading. Although The Good Shepherd is advertised as “the untold story of the birth of the CIA,” it is actually the fictional story of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) and the gradual deterioration of his soul as he dedicates his life to the development of the CIA. Spanning 1939 to the 1961 Cuban Missile Crisis, it’s an epic drama about how a lack of honesty and trust ultimately results in an unfulfilling life without love.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson has created a world in which agents and spies are black silhouettes on quiet streets. They aren’t real, simply an absence of light. Directed by Robert De Niro, who also plays a small role, and written by Eric Roth, whose past screenplays include The Insider and Forrest Gump, this 167 minute film is fascinating and never feels slow despite its cerebral subject. However, it is, at times, unwieldy from a constant flipping back and forth in time and a cast so large one often loses track of which low-voiced, trench coat-wearing agent is which (though the abundance of known actors helps here).

Matt Damon is a truly fine actor, and his portrayal of Wilson is simultaneously distastefully cold and sympathetically devastating. Unfortunately, he’s too young for this role. Although actors are often called on to play older and younger characters in epics, Wilson is in his mid-forties during the majority of the film, and thirty-six-year-old Damon looks closer to twenty-five. Scenes in which Wilson stares dolefully at his twenty-something son have a slightly comic, improbable feel.

The Good Shepherd is an estimable, thought-provoking film packed with fine performances. Had it not been released during Christmas week, it probably would have received much more attention. The studios must know if they’re going to release a film during blockbuster Oscar-contender week, they have to make sure it’s momentous and not merely quite good, as this one is.