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While he was a student at Yale, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), a mild-mannered poetry major and a member of the Skull and Bones secret society, was recruited for a brand-new government agency, which would eventually become the Central Intelligence Agency. A loyal and respectable kind of guy who always does what’s right, Edward finds himself living in a world that’s completely unfamiliar—one in which he can never be sure who’s on his side and who’s really working against him.
In the midst of the heightened tensions of the Cold War, Edward is in a place of prominence in the CIA, and his dedication to his job and to his country leads him to sacrifice time with his wife, Margaret (Angelina Jolie), and his son, Edward, Jr. (Eddie Redmayne).
After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Edward receives a grainy photograph and a mysterious recording. They lead him to look back on his career and the decisions he’s made through the years as he follows the clues to try to figure out who was responsible for leaking the information to the enemy.
The Good Shepherd is one of the December releases that I was really looking forward to seeing—because I love a good spy story. But despite the film’s painfully long two-hour-and-45-minute run time, very little actually happens. And that which does happen is nearly impossible to follow.
One problem is in the number of characters that viewers are supposed to be able to keep track of. There are Skull and Bones characters and FBI characters and CIA characters and Russian characters and British characters. And you’re supposed to remember who’s who and how the character is connected to Edward and how they feel about one another. But then you also need to remember that this is the CIA, and you’re not supposed to trust anyone—which means that pretty much everyone is a double agent, so you’re never quite sure who’s working for whom. I realize that that’s just the way things go with spy movies, but this one has more characters than usual—and very few of them are developed well (if they’re developed at all).
The story also skips around chronologically—from the post-Bay-of-Pigs ‘60s…back to Edward’s college days in the late ‘30s…to his early days in the CIA in the ‘40s—back and forth, back and forth. And Damon never really looks older or younger at any time in the movie. The only real difference between Edward in his 20s and Edward in his 40s is the glasses he’s wearing—round wire frames or bigger, darker frames. And that only adds to the confusion.
The Good Shepherd is a long and exhausting film that requires way too much work to try to figure out what’s going on. And since it offers very little payoff in the end, it’s just not worth the time and effort.
