The Good Shepherd (2007, DVD)

Director Robert De Niro forgot one very important aspect of film-making when he took the Eric Roth written script to the big screen. That tangible ingredient was to make the characters interesting enough to carry a strong story from beginning to end. The unfortunate part about the screenplay though, was that it centered around a character that may have partaken in very important events that helped shape part of our country, but did so with words rather than emotions. I don't want to negate the importance of the story this film was based upon, nor the sacrifices that the man who Matt Damon plays went through in real life, but the translation from that to film didn't convey the message that it really should have. Instead, what we have here is a presentation of futility, where the characters are abandoned in order to tell the story.

Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, who is recruited out of college to become a member of the upstart Central Intelligence Agency right at its birth. He is a stoic person, who has only really enjoyed life while in the presence of a woman who was born deaf. Due to actions of his own, that relationship does not work out, and he finds himself trapped into a marriage to Margaret Russell (played by Angelina Jolie). On the very day he is getting married, he is called into action to go overseas and help England during its fight against Germany in World War II. Though America hasn't become directly involved in the fighting, the need to offer assistance on intelligence finds the U.S. sending people to London in an effort to help the resistance. Shipping out immediately, he finds himself separated from his wife of one day without really getting to know her.

The film shows all of Wilson's actions on behalf of the CIA, and exactly what he goes through on a daily basis trying to protect U.S. interests. This includes becoming close to people in powerful positions of the Government, as well as undertaking missions that would question his ethics and morality as a human being. Through all of this though, the screenplay leaves everything up to the audience in regards to what we should be feeling or thinking, because the emotional aspect of the film is basically non-existent. I wouldn't go as far as saying that Damon and Jolie are terrible in their roles, but the material that they are given to work with shows the worst parts of their acting talents. Damon plays a stoic character that almost seems disinterested in everything he is involved with, and Jolie seems to have too many misplaced emotions with the lines she is given.

The most frustrating part of the film The Good Shepherd is that the story could have been so much better if the script had worked harder at making the characters likeable or at least watchable. Instead every time Damon is on the screen, the film get extremely boring, and it becomes very difficult to keep your attention on the screen, even though the events around his character were really very dramatic in real life. The dialogue fails him as well, never giving him the material to elevate his character to a higher level of consciousness. It is even worse with Jolie, who doesn't see very much screen-time early on, so when her emotions are thrown at Damon's unresponsive character later, it rings hollow. The premise of the story could have been very good, covering the birth of the CIA, but the weak story, the boredom that it creates in its viewers, and the lack of intriguing dialogue spells the doom to this story.