I just came back from a screening of this, and I am a little surprised that it hasn't picked up any sort of buzz for awards this year. While it is nothing spectacular, it is well-made and interesting in the least. This seems the sort of film the Academy would have eaten up 20 years ago, and it is certainly better than many of the recent "Oscar-type" films to garner heavy nominations in the last few years.
What really makes this film work in any way is the all-star cast DeNiro has assembled. Damon yet again proves himself the ballsiest of major movie stars, playing a completely unlikeable and distancing character with no signs of likeability. Tack on great work by Alec Baldwin, Robert DeNiro, Michael Gambon, Kier Dullea, Tammy Blanchard, William Hurt, Billy Crudup and especially John Tuturro. The kid who plays Damon's son is also fantastic (I say kid, but realize he is my age...touchee). The only weak link in the film is Angelina Jolie, who proves herself miscast and a completely uninteresting actress.
The technical aspects of this film are also spectacular. DeNiro's direction seems cold at times, and the entire film is distancing and gets tedious near the end, but he knows how to surround himself with top-form talent and that carries the film, and at least makes it engaging throughout the film. You could do much worse than this movie, but don't rush out to see it. And based on the poor response at tonight's screening, this isn't going to be a commercial hit.
The Good Shepherd
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Two reviews. (Variety didn't include the critic's name.)
The Good Shepherd
The birth of the CIA and the life journey of one of its founding operatives is a fascinating subject, one that is done only lukewarm justice in "The Good Shepherd." Robert De Niro's second film as a director adopts a methodical approach and deliberate pace in attempting to grasp an almost forbiddingly intricate subject, with a result that is not boring, exactly, but undeniably tedious. Cast and material's intrinsic interest will provide a sufficient media profile for a decent B.O. launch, but lack of excitement and suspense will translate into a quick commercial fade.
Eric Roth's heavily researched original script fictionalizes known events big and small as it hops, skips and jumps through some 40 years of an ever-changing geopolitical landscape. Pivoting on the CIA's role in the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, ambitious yarn casts its eye on such other historical signposts as the Skull & Bones society, the formation of the OSS on the eve of World War II and the long chess game of the Cold War, all the while developing an arching theme involving the legacies of fathers and sons.
Given the glacial emotional temperature and withholding nature of the characters, it would not be surprising to learn that De Niro's artistic template here was the Al Pacino portion of "The Godfather: Part II," which itself serves as a reminder that executive producer Francis Ford Coppola once planned to direct this project himself.
But the long and short of the problem is that the director never finds a proper rhythm to allow the viewer to settle comfortably into what turns out to be a very long voyage. Like many films of the moment, this one keeps jumping around in time, not confusingly in the least, but in a way that has no natural flow to it. Tie that to a central character who defiantly offers no glimpse into his inner life and you have a picture that offers scant returns for the investment of time it requests of the viewer.
Beginning with a sketchy account of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the narrative bounces back to 1939, when blueblooded Yale student Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is initiated into the secret future leaders training ground, Skull & Bones -- which in turn triggers another flashback to 20 years earlier, when little Edward discovered the body of his father, who committed suicide.
A square, upright fellow with a gift for poetry, Edward attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin), to whom Edward displays his advanced sense of loyalty by exposing the evident Nazi connections of his doting English professor (Michael Gambon). In this patriotic act of personal betrayal, a long and fruitful career begins.
A man of few words and no humor, Edward possesses a purposefulness that impresses the high society of his classmates. His stony seriousness poses only a momentary challenge to a spirited and flirtatious senator's daughter, Clover (Angelina Jolie), who gets herself knocked up just as Edward has taken an interest in an appealing deaf girl, Laura (Tammy Blanchard). Edward dutifully marries Clover and promptly disappears for six years to blitz-plagued London at the behest of "Wild Bill" Sullivan (De Niro in a wryly sage turn), who's been put in charge of FDR's foreign intelligence unit, the nascent Office of Strategic Services.
When Edward finally returns, he meets his son but has virtually nothing to say to the wife he scarcely knows. Things remain frosty between them, a consequence of Edward's professional policy of disclosing nothing and trusting no one. But it's one of the film's key failings that this relationship is never defined at least to the point of explaining why Clover stays with Edward when he ignores her so totally, a situation aggravated by the casting of Jolie, who one knows would never sit around waiting for a man forever.
Nevertheless, Edward Jr. (Eddie Redmayne, good) comes to play a critical role in his father's life, as shadowy exchanges between East and West come to dominate. Particularly central is the CIA's wary acceptance of a Soviet defector, Valentin (John Sessions), only to be confounded by the later arrival of another Russian (Mark Ivanir) claiming to be the real Valentin, all against the backdrop of Edward's efforts to learn all he can about his own KGB counterpart, "Ulysses" (Oleg Stefan).
Inherent tragedy of the story lies in the seeming inevitability of betrayal on both personal and professional fronts when matters are pushed to their furthest limits. Here, too, are found echoes of the "Godfather" films, but the thematic similarities merely point up "The Good Shepherd's" shortcomings where directorial command is concerned. Crucially missing is slowly building momentum, a firm hand on pace, a way to convey gradual moral decay and a talent for magisterial storytelling, gifts that are impossible to fake in the long run.
Seemingly based in great measure on the ever-intriguing James Angleton, Damon's Edward remains an opaque, impenetrable figure throughout, and neither actor nor script provides the subtext to reveal any layers of personality. Many of the supporting players provide welcome personal flavors, but thesping overall is restrained rather than flashy or deeply felt.
Considerable care has gone into period details, as exemplified by the rich contributions of production designer Jeannine Oppewall, costume designer Ann Roth and cinematographer Robert Richardson, which combine for a darkly burnished look. Score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler provides imaginative, atypical backdropping.
-----------------------------------------
The Good Shepherd
By Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
Who knew Robert De Niro has such a keen fascination for foreign policy and espionage? "The Good Shepherd," his first directorial effort since his debut feature, "A Bronx Tale" (1993), is a thoroughly knowledgeable, carefully researched account of the founding and development of the CIA from World War II through the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's "Munich," Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes crystal clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret "Clover" Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but "Good Shepherd" is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
The Good Shepherd
The birth of the CIA and the life journey of one of its founding operatives is a fascinating subject, one that is done only lukewarm justice in "The Good Shepherd." Robert De Niro's second film as a director adopts a methodical approach and deliberate pace in attempting to grasp an almost forbiddingly intricate subject, with a result that is not boring, exactly, but undeniably tedious. Cast and material's intrinsic interest will provide a sufficient media profile for a decent B.O. launch, but lack of excitement and suspense will translate into a quick commercial fade.
Eric Roth's heavily researched original script fictionalizes known events big and small as it hops, skips and jumps through some 40 years of an ever-changing geopolitical landscape. Pivoting on the CIA's role in the failed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, ambitious yarn casts its eye on such other historical signposts as the Skull & Bones society, the formation of the OSS on the eve of World War II and the long chess game of the Cold War, all the while developing an arching theme involving the legacies of fathers and sons.
Given the glacial emotional temperature and withholding nature of the characters, it would not be surprising to learn that De Niro's artistic template here was the Al Pacino portion of "The Godfather: Part II," which itself serves as a reminder that executive producer Francis Ford Coppola once planned to direct this project himself.
But the long and short of the problem is that the director never finds a proper rhythm to allow the viewer to settle comfortably into what turns out to be a very long voyage. Like many films of the moment, this one keeps jumping around in time, not confusingly in the least, but in a way that has no natural flow to it. Tie that to a central character who defiantly offers no glimpse into his inner life and you have a picture that offers scant returns for the investment of time it requests of the viewer.
Beginning with a sketchy account of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the narrative bounces back to 1939, when blueblooded Yale student Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is initiated into the secret future leaders training ground, Skull & Bones -- which in turn triggers another flashback to 20 years earlier, when little Edward discovered the body of his father, who committed suicide.
A square, upright fellow with a gift for poetry, Edward attracts the attention of an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin), to whom Edward displays his advanced sense of loyalty by exposing the evident Nazi connections of his doting English professor (Michael Gambon). In this patriotic act of personal betrayal, a long and fruitful career begins.
A man of few words and no humor, Edward possesses a purposefulness that impresses the high society of his classmates. His stony seriousness poses only a momentary challenge to a spirited and flirtatious senator's daughter, Clover (Angelina Jolie), who gets herself knocked up just as Edward has taken an interest in an appealing deaf girl, Laura (Tammy Blanchard). Edward dutifully marries Clover and promptly disappears for six years to blitz-plagued London at the behest of "Wild Bill" Sullivan (De Niro in a wryly sage turn), who's been put in charge of FDR's foreign intelligence unit, the nascent Office of Strategic Services.
When Edward finally returns, he meets his son but has virtually nothing to say to the wife he scarcely knows. Things remain frosty between them, a consequence of Edward's professional policy of disclosing nothing and trusting no one. But it's one of the film's key failings that this relationship is never defined at least to the point of explaining why Clover stays with Edward when he ignores her so totally, a situation aggravated by the casting of Jolie, who one knows would never sit around waiting for a man forever.
Nevertheless, Edward Jr. (Eddie Redmayne, good) comes to play a critical role in his father's life, as shadowy exchanges between East and West come to dominate. Particularly central is the CIA's wary acceptance of a Soviet defector, Valentin (John Sessions), only to be confounded by the later arrival of another Russian (Mark Ivanir) claiming to be the real Valentin, all against the backdrop of Edward's efforts to learn all he can about his own KGB counterpart, "Ulysses" (Oleg Stefan).
Inherent tragedy of the story lies in the seeming inevitability of betrayal on both personal and professional fronts when matters are pushed to their furthest limits. Here, too, are found echoes of the "Godfather" films, but the thematic similarities merely point up "The Good Shepherd's" shortcomings where directorial command is concerned. Crucially missing is slowly building momentum, a firm hand on pace, a way to convey gradual moral decay and a talent for magisterial storytelling, gifts that are impossible to fake in the long run.
Seemingly based in great measure on the ever-intriguing James Angleton, Damon's Edward remains an opaque, impenetrable figure throughout, and neither actor nor script provides the subtext to reveal any layers of personality. Many of the supporting players provide welcome personal flavors, but thesping overall is restrained rather than flashy or deeply felt.
Considerable care has gone into period details, as exemplified by the rich contributions of production designer Jeannine Oppewall, costume designer Ann Roth and cinematographer Robert Richardson, which combine for a darkly burnished look. Score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler provides imaginative, atypical backdropping.
-----------------------------------------
The Good Shepherd
By Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
Who knew Robert De Niro has such a keen fascination for foreign policy and espionage? "The Good Shepherd," his first directorial effort since his debut feature, "A Bronx Tale" (1993), is a thoroughly knowledgeable, carefully researched account of the founding and development of the CIA from World War II through the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions.
To attract moviegoers beyond the foreign-policy crowd, he has recruited stars and top actors led by Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and borrowed the trappings of spy thrillers, though the film certainly leans more toward John le Carre than Ian Fleming. The problem with marketing the film centers on the problem of the film itself. De Niro and writer Eric Roth are never clear on their intentions: Is this a thriller with a historical background or history with dollops of intrigue and adventurism?
In this film as well as last year's "Munich," Roth seems to be operating between the genre cracks with political films in the mode of early Costa Gavras that deploy Hitchcockian techniques without romantic characters or situations.
The movie follows the spy career of Edward Wilson (Damon), a privileged male of the white patrician class. The character is modeled, right down to his interest in poetry, on James Angleton, who co-founded the CIA. It's accurate in most things but has the patina of fiction, which allows the filmmakers to imagine and speculate about things that perhaps will always remain secret.
At Yale in 1939, Wilson joins the clandestine Skull and Bones society, a brotherhood meant to incubate future American leadership. (The 2004 Republican and Democratic presidential candidates belong.) Roth makes crystal clear that the penchant for utter secrecy and sense of entitlement fostered by the Skull and Bones carry over into its members' work in government.
At the behest of an Army general (De Niro), Wilson joins the Office of Strategic Services during WWII. This sends him to London, where his mentor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), teaches him the fine art of counterintelligence. Yet his last piece of advice to Wilson before Fredericks is murdered -- "Get out while you still have a soul" -- goes unheeded.
The movie unfolds in flashbacks from the Bay of Pigs incident, which severely compromises the CIA and Wilson's career. While diligently trying to ferret out the turncoat who relayed invasion plans to the Cubans, Wilson reflects back on his life. What is clear to the viewer, but not to Wilson himself, is how paranoia rules his actions and how self-righteousness blinds him to opinions and desires of others, including his family.
He weds Margaret "Clover" Russell (Jolie), the sister and daughter of a fellow Skull and Bonesmen, in a polite shotgun marriage. The union proves loveless right from the start since Wilson has thrown over his true soulmate (Tammy Blanchard). He doesn't meet his son Edward Jr. until age 6 when he returns home from Europe. The son consequently will wish to win his father's love by emulating him -- with disastrous consequences.
The OSS gets transformed into the CIA with the onset of the Cold War. At work, Wilson's obsessions with double agents and a mole within Langley dominate his relationships with people there, including CIA director Philip Allen (William Hurt); Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), the rough-and-tumble agent who first recruited him; his blue-collar assistant Ray Brocco (John Turturro); and British spy Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), whose Cambridge-upper-class heritage mirrors the backgrounds of the good old boys of the CIA.
Wilson's secret weapon is silence. He watches and listens but reveals little. Yet he has one outburst in the movie in an interview with a Mafia don (Joe Pesci), when Wilson says the USA belongs to the WASPs, and everyone else -- Italians, Jews, Irish and blacks -- are mere visitors. While Wilson probably would never say such a thing aloud, it captures the mind-set perfectly.
The sum of the parts might not add up to a great movie, but "Good Shepherd" is a pretty good one. Some scenes hit you with the impact of a bullet. And it probably took an actor of De Niro's caliber to get his stars to tone down their onscreen personas to play genuine roles.
Damon here is not Jason Bourne. No one bothers to age his character, which becomes a distraction when he looks like a drinking buddy to his own son, but this character is a ruthless, insufferable bastard who buried his emotions when his father committed suicide.
Jolie here is not Lara Croft or Mrs. Smith but the once-sassy, now long-suffering wife of a spook. And so it goes through the cast, with only Gambon playing what you might call a fictional movie character, but it fits the role to a T.
Designer Jeannine Oppewall and costume designer Ann Roth bring to life the shadowy world of espionage both in Europe and the East Coast. Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives the film a moodiness and edginess that the score by Marcelo Zarvos and Bruce Fowler --with overtones of Philip Glass -- highlight.
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
Win Butler