thpapasotiriou Nice topic and interesting point of view, casting was amazing, which is the reason that I selected this movie, but I found the movie a bit boring. I think th pace was slow and not that much of suspense. I think director could have done better (sorry Robert). I recommend to watch this movie with low expectations a night that you get bored and have nothing better to do. Put it back in your list but do not exclude it at all. Only because of the topic and the casting worths a try.

sol- Very loosely based on the life of the CIA Head of Counterintelligence during the 1960s, this drama looks at the early years of the agency and its difficulties with the Bay of Pigs. The structure is quite innovative with the film flipping back and forth between the World War II years and the 1960s as the protagonist, played by Matt Damon, is haunted by memories of past failures after being accused of an intelligence leak. Engaging as all this sounds, the film is oddly hard to get through. The lack of makeup to age Damon is the most obvious vice; the story is impossible to follow at times with it unclear whether certain scenes are taking place in the 1940s or 1960s. Then there is the absence of any passage of time between Damon's son as a preteen and adult (Eddie Redmayne is great in the role though). The film's biggest setback though is the fact that Damon's character is cold, reserved and uncharismatic throughout. With his constant poor choices in life, he becomes an incredibly hard person to like. He is not just flawed but almost without virtue. That said, his extreme willingness to put his work/country ahead of his family is certainly curious and the overall film offers a fascinating portrait of individuals doing morally ambiguous things in the name of protecting their country - the most memorable of which is using LSD in an interrogation (with obvious results). Add in a solid supporting turn from Tammy Blanchard, and 'The Good Shepherd' certainly has a number of things going in its favour, but one's mileage is likely to vary based on patience and interest in the subject matter.

kblehman I tried staying with this movie for an hour or so but it was so disjointed and tedious I finally gave up on it. I agree with another reviewer that the cinematography is good, but that cannot make up for the fact that the movie jumps all over the place without warning, which adds to the confusion. (At one point we're involved in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the next we're in 1939.)I suppose the writer and director knew exactly what they were doing, and perhaps all of the disjointed sections of the story were tied together neatly at the end. If so it would require some serious twine.IMO a new viewer will find it very difficult to follow the story. DeNiro is fine actor, perhaps he should have stuck with that.

ThatMOVIENut A fictionalization of the origins of the CIA, DeNiro's second film behind the camera tells the story of Edward Wilson (Damon) who goes from university lad to civil servant to one of the founders of the CIA, which gets its baptism of fire in the heated political climate of the 1960s as it battles the threat of Communism. Of course, the paranoia and intrigue soon envelop Wilson's existence.Well filmed but less substantial and much slower than it ought to be. 'Good Shepherd' is a great idea, discussing the origins of the CIA, that is ultimately too dragged out and not incisive enough to make it stick. The political intrigue never feels engrossing enough, the tension never consistently palpable enough, the sense of how Wilson's work affects the outer world never feeling present enough. In fact, half of the film is basically a biopic about Wilson, charting his youth and civil service days, as well as his courting and marriage to Jolie's character (this a film that clocks in at over two and a half hours, may I remind you), and though not poorly written, it wears out its welcome well before we get to any secret service business. This is a real slow burner, which not always a bad thing, but here, the pacing sags a lot because of all this perfunctory material that could've been condensed to a few flashbacks or even a vignette, instead of getting to the LeCarre style spy intrigue, which is when the film does pick up, but I really question if Eric Roth's script needed to be this bulky with material.On the plus side, DeNiro is a very strong director, with some really tense sequences and intrigue in that second half, as well as a very shadowy, almost sepia aesthetic to the film which enhances that sort of 'secret archive footage' look that fits a spy tale rather well. And well, with someone like DeNiro in charge, it goes without saying he roped in a bunch of strong performers, on top of a very restrained Damon, including the likes of Alec Baldwin, Bill Hurt, John Tuturro, Michael Gambon, Joe Pesci and Timothy Hutton. This wasn't a film made with slack, but it seems like the prestige came before the substance. Well performed and mounted, and not without ambition or merits, there is simply no denying where it fell down, and that makes 'Good Shepherd' a noble but still, nonetheless, disappointment all the same.