Secrets, deception, and sacrifices are the backbone of Robert De Niro’s The Good Shepherd, which revolves around one man’s life during the early stages of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency. From beginning to the audience was pondering over which events or stories were true and which weren’t.
The movie begins with Eddie Wilson, portrayed by Matt Damon, who looks at everything around him with suspicion. Even as a young boy asks him for a change of a dollar, Wilson gives the boy a long look before finally complying. Afterwards, in his office, he uses the same dollar bill to decode an encrypted message sent to him. Thus the movie exposes the audience to a world of code languages and subtle hints that is bound to drive people crazy with curiosity.
Wilson is portrayed as a man who does anything and everything for his country. While a student at Yale, Wilson was initiated into the Skull and Bones society. From there, he was then recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the beginnings of today’s CIA.
Being a part of the OSS, however, takes a toll on Wilson’s ideals. The once upright young man became secretive and untrusting of those around him. He begins to sacrifice many of his previous beliefs for the perception that what people around him believe is “the right thing to do;” he is even forced to break up with his girlfriend Laura (played by Tammy Blanchard) and marry Clover (played by Angelina Jolie) to keep the suspicions at bay.
As the movie progresses, Wilson is whisked away from the US to work in Britain during World War II. There he begins to delve into the inner workings of counterintelligence. Wilson then works in a race against the Russians after the war, gathering as many German scientists as possible. The rivalry, though silent and discreet, becomes dangerous as Wilson meets his Russian counterpart, codename “Ulysses.”
A number of events eventually lead to the present, where he is trying to find the identity of the stranger that betrayed the CIA during the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Recordings and pictures are sent to Wilson for examination, but to his dismay, he realizes that the traitor is none other than his son (played by Eddie Redmayne), who relayed secret information to a woman spy he had fallen in love with.
The Good Shepherd has a language of its own. Many of the agents in the movie spoke in such riddle-like form that some viewers could only look to their neighbors and wonder what just took place. Although quite intriguing, it was also difficult to understand just what went on in a certain scene without having to recall an exact detail from a previous part of the movie.
Something that struck me as particularly well-done was the portrayal of the way that counterintelligence interrogated suspects and spies in order to procure correct information—wrong information was gathered at some parts of the movie. There was a point when Wilson interrogates two different Valentin Mironovs (the first one played by Mark Ivanir and the second one by John Sessions). By the end of both interrogations, it became difficult to truly tell who the real spy was.
Damon played his character well. Wilson evolves from a man of morals and creativity—his first career path was toward poetry—to a man who is driven to protect his country at any cost, even if it meant lying to everyone every step of the way. Jolie also managed to play the perfect emotional partner to Damon’s cold and stiff character.
The film is a chilling tale based on historical events, and it takes viewers through a world where nobody can be trusted and nothing is as it first appears.
