The Good Shepherd

This has to be one of the most timely movie reviews I've ever done, since the film just opened this weekend. It's the sacrifice I make for you--when my friend Elliot suggested going to the movies, I agreed just so I could review the film for all of you.

Before we get to the film, however, let me review the theater at which we saw it: the Cinemark theater in Sandusky, Ohio. Wow, what a crappy theater. Constructed in the days just before stadium seating became all the rage, it was outdated before it was worn out. Now, however, it is worn out as well. The thing it really has going for it is that the only other theater within at least a half hour drive is just as craptacular as it is. Location, location, location....

Okay, on with the show. The story here is two-fold: the growth of the CIA and the personal journey of one of its early (fictional) operatives. Matt Damon plays this central figure, Edward Wilson, a bright, idealistic Yale English major who is brought into the secret world of the Skull and Bones fraternity, from which it is only a short step to spying for the government, first on his Germanic poetry professor and later as part of the WWII Office of Strategic Services (which later becomes the CIA). Wilson is in many ways an idealistic, if flawed, man of principle. His commitment is always to his country. At the same time, in his personal life, he sacrifices the opportunity he seems to have for love with his deaf girlfriend (Tammy Blanchard) in order to do "the right thing" and marry a friend's sister when he gets her pregnant (Angelina Jolie--pretty lousy second prize, huh?). In many ways, it is this alternation between his personal life and his professional life in the CIA that defines the film. The two are constantly intertwined and illuminate one another-to say nothing of shaping one another.

Over the course of the film we see both Wilson and the CIA itself develop from idealistic beginnings to jaded hardness as Wilson comes almost to define the CIA. The story shifts back and forth not only between personal and private but also between the movie's present (just before and after the Bay of Pigs invasion) and Wilson's past--taking us from his college days through WWII and the Cold War. The plot can be a bit much to follow, as it has not only these two axes of work/home and past/present to deal with, but also a fairly complex plot as Wilson works to figure out what went wrong with the Cuban operation.

If it sounds like a juggling act taht DeNiro has for himself as director, that's because it is, and while he keeps all the balls in the air, it's not always with the dexterity we might have liked. The pace sometimes drags and sometimes speeds ahead too fast. With an almost-three-hour film on your hands, you really need the pacing to be almost perfect. Otherwise, when it drags you notice it; maybe the lulls were to give the audience time to process what the heck just happened when the film moved a bit too fast, but in any case it took something away from the film.

Nonetheless, on the whole I thought it was quite good. Without being in the least preachy, it offers an interesting take (or maybe I should say "takes") on national security issues that, of course, are still relevant today. At the same time, we're given a good mystery to puzzle out and interesting characters who we by and large believe in.

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