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One undisputable fact about The Good Shepherd is that it looks great. The art direction Oscar nomination was well deserved. In other respects, the film has not been so universally praised, as shown by lack of recognition in the other categories. Co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola's company American Zoetrope, The Good Shepherd certainly shares some similarities with Coppola's The Godfather, in that it attempts to take an intimate, character-based approach to subject matter with an epic scope and has a considerable running time. Calling the shots is Robert De Niro for only the second time, but the film in no way feels like the work of an inexperienced director, as he handles the weighty narrative, about the birth of the CIA, very effectively. The film is told mostly in flashback, starting in 1961 and then detailing events up to that point (beginning with the pre-World War 2 days), while periodically returning to 1961. The structure cleverly keeps the forward momentum going, as the 1961 segments focus on an intriguing investigation into a mysterious photograph, while the flashbacks flesh out character detail and provide interesting backstory. The script by Eric Roth, who wrote Michael Mann's gripping drama The Insider, deserves praise too.
De Niro has assembled an impressive high-profile cast to portray most of the major roles which helps immensely with keeping track of who's who in the storyline. Some of the names have small roles, such as De Niro himself, and the coaxed-from-retirement Joe Pesci, whose appearance is disappointingly limited to one short scene, but their presence makes their screen-time memorable. Matt Damon has a difficult job in the lead role as the character is rather emotionless, but Damon has proved himself capable of playing emotionally stunted but intelligent characters in the past (the Bourne series, The Talented Mr. Ripley) and again is up to the challenge. Angelina Jolie seems miscast as his wife - she's implausibly attractive for an ignored, downtrodden housewife - but her performance was pretty good nonetheless. There were a couple of small flaws that slightly distracted me; for example, due to the fact that the story spans a lengthy time frame (about 23 years), the characters age quite a lot, yet some of the actors, particularly Damon and Jolie, don't change in appearance much throughout the whole film. Conversely, their son seems to completely skip adolescence. Still, it's always tricky to show characters aging on screen, so I can forgive the problem somewhat. It didn't detract from what I thought was a thoroughly engrossing film; it definitely had a methodical pace but it had me hooked virtually from the beginning.
The summary
De Niro has delivered an admittedly long but intelligent and captivating second feature that doesn't choose the easy options (explosions and explanations) and is better for it. Excellent.
