GOOD SHEPHERD

A little difficult to follow, but accurate?

First, a comment of commendation: Matt Damon played the lead role in this film. He was so low key, he almost reminded me of Billy Bob Thornton in "The Man Who Wasn't There," i.e., so different from a role I would expect of him was to border on the uncanny.

Now, commenting on my "title." I usually don't do all that well with films that start at one historic point, then bring you thirty years before, then sixty years after...and on and on. You get the picture? This film did that quite a bit. It went from Edward Wilson's (Damon's) role as a student at Yale, and his induction into Skull and Bones, then to during WWII, then back gto Wilson's childhood when Edward witnessed his father's suicide, then... (The only "adhesive" in the film was the suicide note that his father had left. It came up during a discussion in the film in which Edward stated that he hadn't read it, then later in the film, when Edward, much later in his life, actually did.)

I saw the point of that format in the film but it can be a little disconcerting, a little hard to follow.

Now, one trait of the film that appealed to me was that when I was in Ireland in early 2007, the film had just arrived there and was showing a lot of popularity in Ireland. Remember that the CIA isn't a terribly popular organization, both because of its indiscretions and myths associated with it, not to mention, I suspect, crimes for which it has been blamed while other US organizations, perhaps the Defense Dept., the Homeland Security people, or others may be more responsible for it. But it has always intrigued me how popular anti-CIA (or anti-secret in general) stories can be around the world.

It was never clear to me whether the film was supposed to be a docudrama, a work of complete fiction, or a pseudo-docudrama. I got the impression that it's supposed to be the third of those, i.e., a predominantly fictional demonstration of how the agency came about, from well-connected elites with little feel for how the rest of us feel. If that's the case, the film succeeded. Again, many of the agency bigwigs at least in the film were Yalies, had connection in the UK with graduates of Cambridge, all of them arrogant, cynical, and unable to trust even each other.

And Damon was so low key that even his wife, portrayed as the sister of another Bonesman whom Damon got pregnant early in the film, complained to him that she didn't even know what he did.

Part of the film's confusion too came about because of an affair Damon had early in the film, and that which another character was "having," and Damon was investigating. (I won't give away any details of that investigation lest I give away more than you should know before you see the film!) While I've seen the film twice so far, I got those two affairs a little mixed up.

There was the interaction between Soviet agents and those of the US, the
CIA's alleged use of lysergic acid to lose one of their potential assests--much of this stuff documented as among the agency's ill-advised tactics.

The film overall has an interesting story, keeps you on the edge of your seat quite effectively. The characters and themes can be confusing, but they do, alas, drive you to want to watch it again. And its accuracy or not could be enough to keep discussion groups occupied for a long time.

It's pretty long, though. If you have anyone with a short attention span, recommend something else. There is tension, enough to keep you watching. The acting was I thought excellent. (DeNiro does show up a few times, but he doesn't use it as a medium to show off his face.) Alec Baldwin is an FBI agent who also serves as a bit of an adhesive through the script. And I won't tell you the content of the suidice note--not released until near the film's end--of you'll have someone put out a contract on me, and I won't blame you.

Enjoy it, though, and let it encourage your reading more about the "intelligence apparatus" and its indiscretions, as well as its alleged successes and failures. November 16, 2008

An exceptional movie

I honestly do not understand why so many people have given this excellent movie such mediocre reviews. I can only imagine that in this dumbed-down age of limited attention spans, anything that challenges the intellect is regarded as 'uncool'. Some reviewers say that the characters are under-developed, while others say that De Niro has taken on too much. This is utter nonsense. The movie is superb, the casting is superb, the acting is superb, and the story is superb. It is, in other words, a masterpiece. October 22, 2008

The Best Spy Film Since The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Not since 1965 and the classic film The Spy Who Came In From The Cold has a spy film taken on the murky world of Cold War espionage in such a realistic fashion. The Good Shepherd takes the potentially boring story of the founding of the CIA and turns it into one of the compelling dramas you will ever see. Thanks especially to great writing and terrific acting, this film makes history come alive.

The film's two leads, Matt Damon (Edward Wilson) and Angelina Jolie (Wilson's wife Clover), have both been involved in more action driven spy thrillers. This film gives them the chance to flex their terrific acting mussels. Damon is an engaging actor and he becomes Edward Wilson. He is both hero and villain throughout the film and one watches as the young idealist becomes a hard cold warrior. He fits into the world of the film so well that at times one could forget you are looking at an actor. Jolie is the emotionally torn wife who, in her words "lives with a ghost" and the film is, in my mind at least, at least as much about her journey through the times as Edward's.

Behind them is a strong supporting cast who make way too many brief appearances. William Hurt's Philip Allen is the mentor of sorts to Edward and he is not as he seems. The same is true for Arch Cummings, played excellently by Billy Crudup, and the defector played by John Sessions. On top of them are the virtual cameos by Alec Baldwin, Robert De Niro, Timothy Hutton, and Joe Pesci. Each of them tells an important part of the story though and without them the film would not be the same. And then there is Eddie Redmayne, who plays the son of Edward Wilson. His performance is stand-out and I suspect there may be a future for this guy.

The writing is a ture masterpiece. While the film is certainly not a documentary (there are numerous factual errors of dates) is does make the past come alive. Many of the scenes and techniques are based on real events and techniques used by the CIA. The history of the CIA's founding and early years from its beginnings in Yale's Skull and Bones through the WWII organization of the OSS and all the way to the disaster at the Bay of Pigs is full of a lot of facts that could have bogged down any film. Yet Eric Roth's script does exactly the opposite. Whiel loaded with facts, the script never loses site of the human drama unfolding in the midst of the events. Not to mention so many excellent pieces of dialouge used in the film including one of my favorite lines:

"You're the guys that scare me. You're the people that make big wars."

"No, we make sure the wars are small ones."

The rest of the film's production values are excellent as well. The sets are amazing and the use of real locations helps out immensily as well. The music score is at times haunting and never fails to hit the right emotional cord. Then there is the excellent cinematography by Robert Richardson. The film is a visual masterpiece on its own without either the acting or script to back it. Director Deniro brings power to the screen and even in what might be an otherwise boring moment our attention is rivited to the screen.

The Good Shepherd is the best spy film in more then four decades (the last one being of course 1965's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold) and that is saying something. This is not only a history lesson, it is a study of those who keep us safe and the price they pay for it. If there is anyone who doubts both the power of espionage and the price one pays for it this is a film they must see. October 22, 2008

Fabulous Film, above most even by John Le Carre

That this film has only an aggregate 3 stars is yet further proof that there are a lot of "stringer" spooks "out there" that post at these sites, policing us and our film opinions to make sure that we are steered away from such a superb and impressive movie, a film easily as good as anything John Le Carre brought to the screen, and most know how he is highly regarded as the novelist of record for such "spycraft." This film is every bit as good as anything he's done, high praise since he is so superbly nuanced, and it's a great introduction to the historical character of James Jesus Angleton, whose life "The Good Shepherd" uses as its model, though not exclusively. Many details of his life are closely reprised, though.

Though not that surprised, I was impressed that director and creator Bobby DeNiro had the chops, depth, and intellect to come up with such a compelling history of what's what at Langley. The roll-up at the end included a note that he intends a sequel, and I can't wait to see what he has planned, since all signs would point to it having some of the most important suggestions about all the rest of the "what's what" in our current day, with this blundering behemoth known as CIA ( note that the main compound there now is named "The George H. W. Bush Center for Intelligence" if you any more need persuading as to the oxymoronic nature of that Beast ~~ Bubba gave the dedicatory speech in fawning adulation of Poppy, and you can see that treacle if you go to "our" country's "intelligence" agency website, archived in their press releases from the end of the Millennium.)

Though by nature the film will arouse a certain controversy, it is anything but boring, rather riveting, and certainly should be at the top of anybody's DVD list. ( If you combine its insights with a film that is inescapably related, "The Good German" with Clooney, you'll see why Keith Olbermann recently tagged one of his recent stories "The Good German Shepherd," as a little levity poked at the peccadillos involved in each. )

Ever since the fascination that's developed out of "The Quiet American" of 2002, with Michael Caine in a stellar portrayal, and please read the background story on this by professor H. Bruce Franklin in The Nation, which you can find by googling "By the Bombs Early Light," a reprint of that review, there's been a sharper popular focus on the betrayals of the American people by our own intelligence community. Graham Greene was on to the whole thing, and the disaster known as "CIA," way back when, since the getgo when he covered it in his unknown role as British Intelligence officer.

All in all, this movie is a crowning achievement for DeNiro, who plays the old OSS boss William Donovan, renamed here S"ullavan" for the sake of "covert" courtesy. Seeing it will give you the flavor and feel of James Jesus Angleton, and others, who put their indelible stamp on the Agency and gave it the DNA that all Americans should hope to re-engineer into something less of a mutation, and more of a service. Much like "Gangs of New York," this film gives an accurate sense of history through a collage of several characters mixed into one, an effect I'd call "Historical Surrealism," since the truth is retained even though certain facts and events are mingled. The truth is distilled out of many into one, so that the fiction can be even more relevant, even in ways more accurate, than the sometimes more pedestrian realities. Many traits or qualities are fused into a single synecdoche.

The flaws of the agency as it now stands could easily bring down the country, from the inside, from our heavily spy-infiltrated electronic elections, all the way to a near complete ignorance of foreign languages, when compared to foreign intelligence agencies, thus putting us at great disadvantage with their powers.

That's just for starters, and all the damage that CIA has done as "premier" of the National Security State inaugurated by Harry Truman ( naming the first chief of CIA, Souers, out of St. Louis, Mo., and his vast intelligence experience running Piggly Wiggly supermarkets) merely at home, in its massaging of our domestic agencies with bad and covert BS, is only a drop in the ocean of wrong and woe it has done to others around the world, with assassinations and propped up petty tyrants, just to name two chronic pranks its famous for. Often their best defense has been our own ineptitude, and John Perkins explores much of the insider's viewpoint on this in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."

See the film, and learn of the lameness, your children will thank you. Damon is surprisingly terrific, too, and all in all superbly directed, acted, scored, filmed. Top marks.


October 12, 2008

The Bittersweet Spy

This is a well made film, unfortunately overlooked despite its star ensemble cast and production. Clocking in at 168 minutes, it probably would have made a better mini series. Robert DeNiro does a great job directing this. However the casting of Matt Damon as a man who gives his life up for the CIA was perhaps not the most inspired choice. I agree it's hard to empathise with him, but I saw that as the limitations of Matt Damon's acting abilities. Taciturn and not particularly expressive, Matt Damon also hardly ages much across the decades that this film spans - he's too constant and thus never progresses as a character.

Nonetheless, the movie is engaging - even though it could have benefitted from more tension. As it is, the DVD's deleted scenes reveal entire sequences that would've made the movie even longer. Given the film's multiple subplots, leaving these scenes out didn't hurt. To sum up, The Good Shepherd plays/ reads like a book, and for those confused about the plot...watch it with subtitles. The ensemble cast makes it worthwhile - Angelina Jolie does a great job as does William Hurt, John Turturro, Alec Baldwin, and everyone else.

DeNiro may have been trying to channel his Cold War version of the Godfather here, but this is a slow burn and Damon is no Pacino. Still, a sterling movie and monumental effort from a screen legend. October 12, 2008

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