The Good Shepherd (Widescreen Edition)

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Fabulous Film, above most even by John Le Carre [Posted on 2008-10-12]
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.

An exceptional movie [Posted on 2008-10-22]
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.

A little difficult to follow, but accurate? [Posted on 2008-11-16]
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.

Good, if dry movie -- but is there a commentary track or features? [Posted on 2008-11-25]
This was an engrossing, if dry, film for those who like Le Carre novels and the Alec Guiness-starred movies based on them. But it's not clear from either the product description or the reviews if a) there's any director or actor commentaries on the film; b) any making-of featurettes; or c) any documenatries about the real CIA or historical figures, such as James Angleton, upon whom the movie is based.
Since there's no mention of any of that in the product description, I assume there's no commentary track or other features. Is that correct?

the company man [Posted on 2008-11-25]
The main character is a tool and I don't like him and I don't like his terrible life but that's not why I didn't care too much for this film (of course). It's entirely possible to do a movie about an unlikable and even bland character that makes him interesting and sympathetic. In this character study the creation of an even mildly compelling character whose life we take any real interest in was simply not accomplished. This isn't to say Matt Damon did not act well because he seems to have turned in a decent, understated performace that was befitting of the role. The fact that this is a story about a strange man whose life is his work that is also the story of the birth of the CIA lumps it together with a whole slew of movies that affect for the worse my reaction to this espionage, cold war spy drama. Seems like it could have been a lot more engaging to me, and no I don't mean more action. THE GOOD SHEPHERD is an odd film.

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