MikePadgett.com

The Good Shepherd

— This dry history of a mystery man's motivations hides its intelligence rather too well.”

• Director: Robert De Niro
• United States, 2006
• 

Matt Damon’s got a tough job here. On the one hand he needs to play the absolute stoic, for whom life-changing decisions are met wordlessly with little more than a glassy stare. On the other, he needs us to empathise with him as his personal life falls apart because he puts his country first.

Damon’s a pretty capable stoic, even if he’s pretty doubtful at everything else. His Tom Ripley was unfathomable, inscrutable. His Will Hunting was frustratingly brittle. And he’s got great support on paper: John Turturro (a wonderfully understated turn), Angelina Jolie (unforgivably miscast in a skeletal role), Michael Gambon, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt. Even Joe Pesci pops up briefly to lend a hand.

Trouble is, it doesn’t quite work. Though The Good Shepherd is a period piece, second time director De Niro can’t rely on nostalgia to warm our cockles as he did in A Bronx Tale. As a facsimile Cold War political thriller, it’s agreeably chilly, but the human story that acts as power generator struggles to get going and we’re left freezing outside.