The Good Shepard is a movie about the early days of the CIA, beginning in the days just before World War II and ending in the early 60's, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. It is the second film directed by Robert De Niro, and I think it's fair to say that he is a much better actor than director. Like his first movie, A Bronx Tale, there are some interesting moments, but both films are poorly edited and far too long, and I get the feeling that De Niro is more interested in imitating the styles of director's he's worked with (Martin Scorsese in the first, Francis Ford Coppola here), than he is developing a unique style of his own.
I had thought from the realistic tone of the trailers that the movie was based on a memoir by an actual CIA agent, but the screenplay is in fact historical fiction written by Eric Roth. Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is a Yale-educated CIA agent who is suspected as being a double agent that leaked information to Castro and allowed the US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion to become a disaster. The investigation is intercut with flashbacks to Wilson's past- an introverted guy from a rich family, he attends Yale as English student and helps an FBI agent to oust a professor with Nazi sympathies. He falls in love with a deaf girl (Tammy Blanchard) but is forced by social conventions to marry Clover (Angelina Jolie) after an affair. Soon after a dying Senator (De Niro) encourages Wilson to join a new covert intelligence agency to fight the Nazi's, and as a result he spends most of WWII in England and misses most of his son's youth. When Wilson returns to the United States he finds himself in a loveless marriage and increasing paranoia- the one maxim of intelligence is never trust anyone.
This film has been compared by some to The Godfather, but the comparison is not so much because of its quality as to its origins- there are many moments, including individual shots, that are right out of Coppola's magnum opus. Look at the scene where Wilson returns home in the snow and see if it doesn't remind you of Michael Corleone doing the same in Part II. Or the arguments between Wilson and his wife that seem to play exactly like Michael and Kay's. In fact, the whole arc of the film is about the same (an essentially decent guy does the wrong thing to try to achieve good and ends up destroying his own soul). Many of the performances are similar too, Damon mostly underplays Wilson, punctuating him with sudden bursts of intense anger- to compensate De Niro surrounds him with a large number of charismatic character players. But the Coppola "influence" doesn't stop at his Mafia trilogy. Much of the movie's visual look is inspired by The Conversation- with the camera often acting as an invisible observer planted to spy on the characters.
Of course, if you are going to be influenced by someone, there are not many better choices than Coppola, but the movie follows much of the director' form and style (and even some themes) while not being nearly as evocative. The movie is badly written, for one thing- all of the supporting characters make long speeches about their philosophy of life and the CIA that comes off as fake and pretentious. It's hard to get involved very much with Wilson either, he's more of a cipher than Michael Corleone and less likable. The movie has a sort of obviousness about it that it annoying and it's way to long- I confess that at the two hour mark I had to use my remote control through the movie's remaining third.
I admired De Niro's ambition, but it just didn't pay off. Here's hoping he sticks to acting.
The Good Shepherd (2006)