Through a Glass, Murkily: The Good Shepherd

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of communism, I fear no Evil Empire. Thy wiretaps and thy secret prisons, they comfort me…"

The description "spy movie" traditionally indicates several key elements of cinema: large explosions, exotic women in bikinis, and bad puns following the deaths of anonymous henchmen. Robert DeNiro's "The Good Shepherd" contains none of these, opting for thrills of the quieter, chilling sort.  On its surface, the subject is the birth of the CIA, but the real heart of the movie is the character of rank-and-file spook Edward Wilson (Matt Damon).

It is important to remember that this is historical fiction and not a documentary.  The plot turns on the premise that the Bay of Pigs invasion failed due to a betrayal within the ranks of the CIA.  Once the coup fails, everyone, from Edward to his superiors at the Agency, begins to move in their little bureaucratic orbits, performing that universal celestial dance of passing the buck. Meanwhile, a mysterious package arrives on Wilson's doorstep containing a grainy photograph and a tape recording of a woman's voice.

Flashback to Yale University, 1939. One minute Edward is in drag on the deck of the HMS Pinafore, the next he's confessing his darkest secrets to upperclassmen while lying naked in a coffin.  But Skull and Bones isn't just about mud wrestling and quasi-Masonic ritual.  At the society's private island retreat, Wilson comes into contact with Gen. Bill Sullivan (DeNiro), who is laying the foundations for the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime intelligence agency that will be the forerunner of the CIA. Right after his wedding reception, Edward jets to England, where he is taken under the wing of MI6 to learn the art of counterintelligence.  After the war is over, the OSS ships him to Berlin, where the boundaries between the U.S. and the Soviet Union are already solidifying.  It is here that Wilson first meets the Russian agent codenamed "Ulysses", who will become his personal antagonist.

The story is not told in linear fashion.  The movie flashes backwards and forwards in time, from the earlier scenes in London and Berlin to an older Wilson straining to converse with a wife (Angelina Jolie) that he hasn't seen in years while orchestrating the overthrow of South American communists.  All the while we are intermittently taken back to the period following the Bay of Pigs invasion.  In a small nondescript room, Wilson and his assistants attempt to decipher the message in the photograph and voice recording, hoping to discover the identity of the double agent in their midst.

There isn't anything on the level of complicated gadgetry like laser pens or that face-duplicating machine in "Mission Impossible".  Wilson and his compatriots are essentially civil servants playing with high stakes.  The techniques employed by the agents- spreading misinformation, influence peddling, intelligence gathering- are not the stuff of high action.  Even when there is violence, it is delivered by hired toughs.  Men like Wilson don't get their fingernails dirty.

"The Good Shepherd" contains strong performances throughout, especially in the supporting cast.  Michael Gambon (also known as the replacement Dumbledore in the "Harry Potter" series) is especially notable as a poetry professor at Yale, whose personal politics bring him under suspicion.  This presents young Wilson with his first dilemma, when an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin) asks him to betray the confidence of his mentor.  Billy Crudup plays a wonderfully oily British intelligence operative who doesn't get nearly enough screentime.  Not everyone shines, though; Angelina Jolie fills out her 1940s wardrobe nicely, but her character is barely present.  The disintegration of her marriage to Edward seems more like a mark the screenwriters felt obligated to hit, and is one of the weakest parts of the movie.  

However, this is really Matt Damon's show.  His performance is understated, as Edward Wilson is something of an enigma.  He is an inscrutable, calculating man, who moves about his life methodically.  Even his rivalry with Ulysses lacks the passion of true obsession, and is more of a mental exercise on his part.  We are told that the Russian agent, on the other hand, is consumed with his adversary, asking constantly, "what is his weakness?"  Upon exiting the theatre, the question the viewer might ask of Edward Wilson is, "what is his motivation?" Every man has a particular idol by whom he might be driven.  It could be family, ambition, or love. It would be tempting to ascribe Wilson's drive to patriotism, but we are given no indication of this. His reasons are highly personal, and he keeps them to himself.

What is most surprising, given its subject, is that "The Good Shepherd" lacks a strong political stance in either direction.  The CIA is shown to be a necessary strategic element, yet its unsavory techniques are difficult to reconcile.  Witness the ghastly depiction of the waterboarding of a suspected KGB agent.  This same suspect snarls during his interrogation that the U.S. is using the threat of communism as a means to increase its own power, and that the Soviet Empire was nothing but "rust and paint". Perhaps, but it was a heap of rust that had a nuclear bomb.  Overall, the focus is drawn too narrowly to call this a truly political film.  One forgets that the conflict is a clash of nations and ideology, not just an intellectual battle of wits between Wilson and Ulysses.  The struggles of the Cold War are reduced to an elaborate chess game between two grandmasters of deceit.