January 8, 2007

The Good Shepherd (2006)
Director: Robert DeNiro
Writer: Eric Roth
Starring: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, and Alec Baldwin
Co-Starring: Tommy Blanchard, Billy Crudup, and Robert DeNiro
Description: Laconic and self-contained, Edward Wilson heads CIA covert operations during the Bay of Pigs. The agency suspects that Castro was tipped, so Wilson looks for the leak. As he investigates, he recalls, in a series of flashbacks, his father's death, student days at Yale (poetry; Skull and Bones), recruitment into the fledgling OSS, truncated affairs, a shotgun marriage, cutting his teeth on spy craft in London, distance from his son, the emergence of the Cold War, and relationships with agency, British, and Soviet counterparts. We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of the film's narration as he closes in on the leak.
Rating: C
In a word... tedious.

In-Depth Review!

Pros:

-Matt Damon is excellent in his role.
-Accurate (so far as I can tell) portrayal of the eras
-Damn good costumes (not quite as good as Marie Antoinette)
-Pretty good cinematography, although not gorgeous

Cons:

-Angelina Jolie: She--I'm sorry--can NOT do drama or scenes requiring her to cry very well
-Jolie and Damon have almost no chemistry, and while I realize that this was intended, it didn't make for a very satisfying coupling
-The plot seems very, very convulted at times, especially for its length.
-Eddie Redmayne was simply horrible in most of his scenes-way too over-the-top, etc.
-Yes, this is nitpicky...

*** SPOILER ***
but at the end when Edward Sr. burns up his father's suicide note, the CGI was so horribly obvious, it damned near ruined the film for me! Nearly one of the worst instances of CGI I have seen!