There’s also a disquieting, not entirely defined aura of emotional and sexual repression in Edward’s interactions both with women and with his fellow spies. But his life at home eventually takes on the arc of a rather dreary soap opera, and begins to drag down the rest of the story – with at least one too many heavily ironic juxtapositions: sentimental songs underscore The Hard Truth of what Edward does for a living, and the destruction it is bringing to his life and his family.
The best sections of the movie end with World War II. Once we have entered the Cold War, both the spy and personal parts of the plot begin to seem somewhat airless and preordained – not to mention often skimpy, lacking in nuance or detail, shallow. (There is one brilliant exception, when a dubious Russian defector, given LSD as a “truth serum,” unnerves the CIA agents by telling them the Soviets are not even a real threat; this scene is far less routine than the rest of the second half.) The model here may be John le Carre, but the results fall short. Nonetheless, the film has an indispensable secret weapon, and his name is Matt Damon.
Damon is splendid in a very challenging role. Edward’s most notable characteristic is his stony silence, expressionless, inscrutable. But Damon makes this silence mean many things: the bafflement of a shy youth encountering sex and love, the appalled realization of just how brutal and awful spying can be, the scary determination of a master adversary. He fights gamely against the soapy sludge of the later scenes, and he is genuinely frightening in a Michael Corleone-like episode of icy, heartless betrayal at the film’s climax (though the script hasn’t earned that kind of payoff, and the plot surrounding the scene is way too contrived). It’s a remarkable performance, convincingly taking us from initial innocence to final corruption (even if Edward still wants to believe his honor is intact). Matt Damon holds the movie together and flies it home.
The large supporting cast is often excellent, with the standouts being Michael Gambon as Edward’s mysterious poetry professor, Tammy Blanchard as the heartbreaking first girlfriend, and Oleg Stefan as a Russian spy code-named Ulysses. Director De Niro has a couple of effective scenes as a character based on the OSS/CIA’s founding father Bill Donovan. But as a fictionalized Kim Philby, the usually marvelous Billy Crudup is hampered by a fey British accent that fits him uncomfortably. And while Angelina Jolie and Eddie Redmayne give their valiant best as Edward’s wife and son, their unconvincing roles ultimately defeat them.
Article comments
1 - Fred Landis
Since the collapse of Communism,the greatest producers of disinformation are movie critics.The only way they get their ideas reprinted by the studios is if they sell the movie.
Proof of this argument is reviews of THe Good Shepherd.The senior British intelligence officer who spots Angleton is killed by his own kind for being gay.The Bay of Pigs invasion failed because of a KGB mata hari.OSS and CIA recruitment excluded CAtholics.In point of fact Philby surrounded himself with gays,who were everywhere in MI6,the Cuban invasion failed because it had no support,and the Covert Action section was predominatly Catholic.Angleton himself was a tall Catholic independent paranoid mad genius,and is depicted as a short Anglo autistic bureocrat. THe people who made this movie may know something about Godfathers but nada of CIA.
2 - Fred Landis
Since the collapse of Communism,the greatest producers of disinformation are movie critics.The only way they get their ideas reprinted by the studios is if they sell the movie.
Proof of this argument is reviews of THe Good Shepherd.The senior British intelligence officer who spots Angleton is killed by his own kind for being gay.The Bay of Pigs invasion failed because of a KGB mata hari.OSS and CIA recruitment excluded CAtholics.In point of fact Philby surrounded himself with gays,who were everywhere in MI6,the Cuban invasion failed because it had no support,and the Covert Action section was predominatly Catholic.Angleton himself was a tall Catholic independent paranoid mad genius,and is depicted as a short Anglo autistic bureocrat. THe people who made this movie may know something about Godfathers but nada of CIA.
3 - handyguy
I don't know what prompted this unpleasant and inaccurate comment 6 months later, but I'll respond: The Good Shepherd is fiction, with some characters based on some aspects of real people. Your criticisms would be more applicable if the film were presented as a biography of Angleton.
Your opening salvo against "movie critics" is ludicrously off the mark. Movie critics do much more than recite plots and compare them to facts. Some of us, at least, try to respond to the movie aesthetically. And my guess is that the movie's producers would have liked other, favorable reviews much more than my own mixed one, for which in any case I was not paid by anyone. Nor am I interested in selling anything with my reviews.
Please go bother someone else.