Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

“SOMEONE once asked me, ‘Why don’t they put a ‘the’ in front of CIA?’ And I said to him, ‘do you put a ‘the’ in front of God?’” CIA surely is a remarkable institution, The Good Shepherd grapples with its formation through and after World War Two, through the eyes of fictional composite character Edward Wilson (Matt Damon). Wilson, who is recruited by Robert De Niro’s spy master, heads overseas counter-intelligence. It is a role that consumes his life, stultifying his marriage with Angelina Jolie’s fetching high society wife. The part is inspired – not in the insipid Pursuit of Happyness way – by the real lives of major spooks James Jesus Angleton and Richard Bissell. A host of good actors, particularly De Niro himself, add weight to proceedings as spies and players around the espionage scene. Alec Baldwin is again notable as one agent; as in The Departed dialogue between him and Damon scores.

Shepherd is sometimes gnomic and leisurely pulsed, but it is an intelligent and enjoyable yarn. In one strong scene, a Russian detainee is given LSD to function as a truth serum after other aggressive techniques have failed to achieve the desired result. When De Niro’s character passionately enthuses about how this institution he has grandfathered must have citizenry oversight as it is always in someone’s interest for there to be enemies real or imagined, Shepherd really resonates. I can’t compare it to the exquisite sadness of The Army of Shadows, but Shepherd has an effective melancholy. Swathed in moody tunes, it is handsomely filmed by Robert Richardson, famed for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese.

» Illustration by Lyndon Barrois.