The Good Shepherd

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

Release Date: December 22, 2006 Nationwide

Starring: Matt Damon, Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, John Turturro, William Hurt, Billy Crudup, Joe Pesci
 
Directed by: Robert De Niro 

Premise: Edward Wilson, the only witness to his father's suicide and member of the Skull and Bones Society while a student at Yale, is a morally upright young man who values honor and discretion, qualities that help him to be recruited for a career in the newly founded Central Intelligence Agency. While working there, his ideals gradually turn to suspicion influenced by the Cold War paranoia present within the office. Eventually, he becomes an influential veteran operative, while his distrust of everyone around him increases to no end. His dedication to his work does not come without a price though, leading him to sacrifice his ideals and eventually his family.

[killafilm]

Joe Pesci is back

[MacGuffin]

[Kal]

why do they always do these things... The Good Sheperd and The Good German released almost at the same time, similar type of film, both Oscar contenders... damnit!

[MacGuffin]

Reclusive De Niro Talks About New Film

The classic law of supply and demand dictates: When a sphinx talks, people listen. So when the famously private and taciturn Robert De Niro wants to speak at length, ears get cocked for a rare windfall of words.

He's uncharacteristically voluble, of course, because he's promoting his second directorial outing, "The Good Shepherd," a tale about the earliest days of the CIA and a fictionalized agent (played by Matt Damon).

But he's also willing to discuss why it's been 13 years between directing efforts, his directing influences, the difference between directing and acting, his recent choice of roles, even grudgingly how he relaxes, and why he doesn't like to talk about his personal life.

Still, De Niro is highly distracted during an interview with The Associated Press. A huddle with production partner Jane Rosenthal delays an interview that was moved up then pushed back to its initial time. Several cell phone calls pull him away.

When he excuses himself for a third time, he graciously says: "Sorry I'm preoccupied. And I want to do justice to the interview."

And he does, eventually.

Once he settles down to talk, De Niro says he wanted to do a movie about the CIA for a long time and, no, playing an ex-spy in comedies with Ben Stiller didn't count.

"I had always been interested in the Cold War and espionage," says the 63-year-old two-time Academy Award winner. "It was just kind of a fascinating part of our history."

Then along came the "The Good Shepherd" script from Eric Roth (whose screenplays include the Oscar-winning "Forrest Gump" and Oscar-nominated "Munich" and "The Insider") although it encompassed an earlier period (1939-61) than De Niro initially wanted to cover.

Aside from the geopolitical relevance that the movie might have now given the debate on treatment of suspects in the war on terrorism, the personal damage is a major focus.

In the movie, Damon's Edward Wilson neglects his wife (Angelina Jolie) and son as he resolutely pursues his espionage career, resulting in a woman whose spirit is broken and a boy overly eager to please his dad.

"I like it when you get the personal side. The personal toll I thought was, to me, interesting, and what I liked about the script when I first read it," De Niro says.

(Asked later, though, why he dislikes talking about his own personal life, he laughs and simply says: "Because it's personal.")

As he researched the film, he traveled to Afghanistan, Moscow and elsewhere, and spent a lot of time with consultant Milt Bearden, who worked in the CIA for 30 years.

De Niro sounds as pleased by Bearden's help with the tiny details, even down to the placement of items in an office, as much as any state secrets or spying stratagems.

"I just didn't want to make any glaring and whatever he could help us with as far as `We're doing it this way, is there anything that I should know or be aware of that we could make it more specific?'" De Niro says in his sometimes stream-of-consciousness manner.

Interestingly, while De Niro the actor has been in some of the most harrowing films of the last three decades, De Niro the director kept the violence to a relative minimum in "The Good Shepherd" though you might see more on the DVD.

"There were a few other little scenes that I shot in the extended version, but I took them out and was always wary of them anyway, and I might put them in the longer version ... I was nervous about in so many movies, there's people getting shot, this and that, and it seems so gratuitous, and it doesn't have any kind of it's too easy."

He wanted to make sure the killings were believable and "not too bloody, not too gory."

Those last words might seem like quite a statement coming from a man who cites Martin Scorsese who directed him in "Mean Streets," "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas" among others as a filmmaking influence.

"Well, I've worked with so many directors, and Marty of course eight times. Being in movies as much as I have certainly didn't not help, as an actor," he says. "I'm aware if something's not working."

One huge difference between directing and acting, he says, is the time commitment.

"An actor, you might be shooting for five weeks, and then that's it. Or you're shooting a week here, a week there, it's broken up. As a director, you gotta be there all the time, from the beginning, preproduction, shooting, postproduction. It's a much longer, much more consistent commitment. And that, in itself, is a lot." (De Niro also plays a small role in "The Good Shepherd.")

Not that he's daunted by the task. It's been 13 years since he directed "A Bronx Tale" but the reasons for the hiatus were at least threefold: Projects were long in the gestating period; no other offers came; and he was still acting.

With all that he's juggling acting, directing again, producing, organizing the Tribeca Film Festival that he founded with Rosenthal to revive lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks De Niro concedes that he has problems budgeting his time.

"I don't mind staying busy. Not all the time, but ..." then his voice trails off, as if there's nothing more to say or that he wants to say.

So then, what does he do to relax?

"Uh, well, going away on vacation. Or at the end of the day, just staying home, reading the paper. Pretty simple stuff."

While he's acted steadily in recent years, some fans and critics feel he's taken roles below his stature in films like "Hide and Seek," "City by the Sea," and "15 Minutes." After all, De Niro is in the pantheon of Hollywood performers of the last four decades, winner of the best-actor Oscar for 1980's "Raging Bull" and supporting-actor for 1974's "The Godfather: Part II," as well as a nominee four other times.

Other critics even cite "Analyze This" and "Analyze That" or "Meet the Parents" and "Meet the Fockers" as mistakes, although many fans appreciated him sending up his own iconic tough-guy roles.

"They're entitled to think that, feel that. I don't know what to say," De Niro says. "I don't know what to say. Can't always please everybody, and I can't always do the right thing."

He denies ever just going through the motions or going for a paycheck.

"I always try to do my best in whatever I do. It has to be something, whatever I do, that I want to do. Otherwise, there's no point in doing it," he says. "It has to be something that I feel that I can do something with to make it worth my while creatively, besides financially."

[JG]

This movie isn't very good.  Its way too long, the plot too muddled, and a few characters miscast (Jolie and the son in particular).   Everyone except Damon is completely one dimensional, and I was disappointed to see so many actors underused, especially Turturro.  His character and his relationship to Damon could've been an interesting dynamic but it was completely lost somewhere along the line.  Plus there were some moments that were completely laughable, especially a few lines at the end of the movie.   There was an implied importance in the delivery of the lines that refused to resonate because the rest of the movie just didn't work on a fundamental level.  i felt like it wanted to be the godfather or something, and it just didn't work. 

[Ghostboy]

Plus there were some moments that were completely laughable, especially a few lines at the end of the movie.   

The joke about God and the CIA, right? Christ, that was awful.

But I think it could have been great if it had been longer - a mini-series, perhaps. I was really intrigued by the history of it all, and somewhat disappointed at the end of the film that what we got was so opaque.

I thought the son was good, but you're so right about Jolie. An example of how some people, no matter how well they might be able to act, are completely wrong for certain parts.

More here.

[OrHowILearnedTo]

a few characters miscast (Jolie and the son in particular) 

I hope that making the kid look like the biggest douchebag ever was intentional.

[Pas]

the lack of comments speaks a lot about the movie.

I liked it because I like every serious espionnage movies. The son was one of the most hateable character I've seen all year. All along I was thinking how destroyed I would be if my son was such a wuss.

The God and CIA line was indeed very silly. I supposed the other guy answered something like : ''What the hell''

[Mikey B]

This film is a bit lengthy but it encompassed everything I adore about espionnage movies. It left me wanting more.

[MacGuffin]

De Niro hopes "Shepherd" first of 3 Cold War films

Robert De Niro said on Saturday the Cold War had captivated his imagination since he was a child and said he hoped to turn his directing effort "The Good Shepherd" into a trilogy of films on the U.S.-Soviet rivalry.

"I'm fascinated by the Cold War," De Niro told a news conference after his third [Mac's note: second] directing effort, a rather dark look at the CIA's origins and its controversial methods, made its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

"Especially the Cold War in Berlin," he added, where his film is competing for a Golden Bear. "As a kid, I was here a few times and went to East Berlin. I found the whole period amazing. It's fascinating stuff. Everybody has a fascination with it."

De Niro, 63, directed the film starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, which drew cheers from a packed press screening. He also had a small role in his film, which starts on the eve of the World War Two era and concludes with the Bay of Pigs debacle.

"I'd love to do a second part, from 1961 when the Berlin Wall went up to 1989 when the Wall fell," said De Niro, who added he spent parts of the last 12 years working on the film. "And then I'd like to do a third part from 1989 to the present."

De Niro said the Cold War might never really be over.

"I always wondered before 'When the Cold war ended, would it ever be over?'. I used to think the other shoe's going to drop. It dropped. Nuclear weapons are easier to get and more countries are getting them. It's a little scary when you think about it."

His film, told through the eyes of a young CIA agent played by Damon, portrays a menacing CIA, its covert activities, and a nefarious power -- which confirms stereotypes of the CIA held in many countries outside the United States.

But De Niro, who also directed "A Bronx Tale" in 1993 and "The Score" in 2001 [Mac's note: The Score was directed by Frank Oz], was reluctant to tell a crowded press conference of European journalists what most wanted to hear.

"It's not a criticism," he said when asked if the film was an attack of the CIA. "I don't want to criticize. I just put the things down in as straightforward, direct and honest way as I could."

[MacGuffin]

Kinda with JG here, although I thought it was just 'good'. The film had me intrigued all the way, but I felt no payoff for it being so secretive; like it didn't even want to let the audience in on what it was all about. I did like the fact that it didn't dumb things down, that if you were paying attention, you knew who/what they were making reference to, and not needing a callback shot or line to help those keep up. And I have to say that Richardson's cinematography was absolutely gorgeous.

[Alexandro]

this film is pretty fucking good.
I had seen it once and felt the same kind of disappointment that others here mentioned, but this second viewing really made it fly for me. it's just so relentless in the "not dumbing this down" aspect that at points it may feel that too much is happening and not much is being explained, or there's no intimacy or something. but it's way better than I remembered it.
however, that joke about god and the cia was horrible.
(the one about "them" having the usa and the rest of the people just visiting was pretty cool though).

[SiliasRuby]

I wasn't really into this film. I wanted to love it. My body was just telling me no. I couldn't watch it over and over again. The trailer I felt misrepresented the movie and I felt betrayed by that...

[Alexandro]

I don't really remember the trailer.
But with a film like this that was bound to happen. It's one weird movie, made with everything in place to be a completely accessible experience (period piece, narrative in both past and present, an idealist main character losing his soul for what he believes in, spies and exotic locations, glamour) and then it isn't. The main character is all that I said, but you get the sense he was never a very loving individual anyway; he seems so willing to lie for a living, and abandon everything that matters to him in favor of the opaque notion of his country's security. So from the get go is hard to follow him, he's pretty much unlikeable.

Also, a los of shit happens in the first twenty minutes or so, and with big name actors. I mean you get Damon, Turturro, Alec Baldwin, Michael Gambon and who knows who else just in the first 15 minutes of this thing. It becomes a distraction. Other thing that happened to me the first time I saw it was that it wasn't clear to me what was the timeline or when we were in the 60's or 30's, mainly because Damon doesn't seem to age at all, except for the use of his glasses. This time around I made the effort of paying more attention and found it much more straightforward and involving than the first look around.

I'm just saying there's a reason a lot of people really like this film out there and feel all the De Niro whoring through the years got it's redemption with this movie.