Good Shepherd (The)
- Director: Robert De Niro
- Writer: Eric Roth
- Producer: Chris Brigham; Francis Ford Coppola
CGiii Comment
An ambiguous lecturer, naked mud wrestling, men piddling on men and Damon in drag - that's the first 5 minutes in this superior spy drama.
Now - if that's not enough to keep you glued to your seat - the unfolding drama will.
Expertly played and deftly controlled by de Niro.
Quality.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Laconic and self-contained, Edward Wilson heads CIA covert operations during the Bay of Pigs. The agency suspects that Castro was tipped, so Wilson looks for the leak. As he investigates, he recalls, in a series of flashbacks, his father's death, student days at Yale (poetry; Skull and Bones), recruitment into the fledgling OSS, truncated affairs, a shotgun marriage, cutting his teeth on spy craft in London, distance from his son, the emergence of the Cold War, and relationships with agency, British, and Soviet counterparts. We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of the film's narration as he closes in on the leak.
Cast & Characters
Matt Damon as Edward Wilson;
Angelina Jolie as Margaret 'Clover' Russell;
Alec Baldwin as Sam Murach;
Tammy Blanchard as Laura;
Billy Crudup as Arch Cummings;
Robert De Niro as Bill Sullivan;
Keir Dullea as Senator John Russell, Sr.;
Michael Gambon as Dr. Fredericks;
Martina Gedeck as Hanna Schiller;
William Hurt as Philip Allen;
Timothy Hutton as Thomas Wilson;
Mark Ivanir as Valentin Mironov #2;
Gabriel Macht as John Russell, Jr.;
Lee Pace as Richard Hayes;
Joe Pesci as Joseph Palmi