RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘The Good Shepherd’: Cinema History of CIA Resembles Organized Crime
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) – What does La Cosa Nostra and the Central Intelligence Agency have in common?
They whack people who know too much, they have disloyalty issues, and they take a toll on (no pun intended) family life. While the Italians specialized in organized crime, the roots of CIA leadership originated in an exclusive Yale club called “Skull and Bones.”
Matt Damon masterfully adapts to the bespectacled, bookish Edward Wilson character who rises within the agency by maintaining quiet secrets, rather than jetting around the globe on sensitive missions. He’s the decision ‘go to’ man on the mainland, an executive operative carrying out the will of the director and / or President.
Wearing a tan trench coat and a civil servant’s suit, Damon crafts his performance through a depiction of conflicting allegiances and subtleties. Trust, whether in a romantic relationship or in the spy business, evolves from comfortable and safe feelings. Here, Damon reveals the stern principled character’s flawed vulnerability when by nod or hand shake he symbolically passes an implied sense of integrity.
Just as this sense of “duty” affects his personal decisions (an unloving marriage to Clover, played with delicate finesse by Angelina Jolie ), it impacts counter-intelligence methods where savvy and confidence must be often reassessed. Initially, the patriotic choices seemingly bear little resemblance to organized crime, but as the agency moves past World War II and into the Cold War, it’s tactics and strategies merge. And, even, the F.B.I. has its eyes and ears on the CIA, just like the mob.
Director Robert DeNiro selects dark, yet reddish, color schemes that evoke reminders of “The Godfather.” However, his film does take on water with too many “audible” exercises in secret messages from a tied or untied shoe lace to the mundane ‘I think we are being watched.’ Still, the production has a cerebral intellect as, for example, the intense analysis of a recording brings memories of the compound complex “Mission Impossible,” the TV series, not Tom Cruisin’ big screen pyrotechnics.
Jolie adamantly handles the wife in the background role by resonating her discontent with increasingly singeing “I live with a ghost” complaints which ratchets upward “agency first” choices in context to family matters.
A strong supporting cast joins DeNiro, including Timothy Hutton, Joe Pesci, Keir Dullea and William Hurt.