Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro star in this powerful and thrilling story of the birth of the CIA. Larry King calls it “the best spy movie ever.”
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The Good Shepherd
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Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro star in this powerful and thrilling story of the birth of the CIA. Larry King calls it “the best spy movie ever.”
source
Comments are closed.
It's like the popular kids in Hollywood got together for a nearly three hour long circle jerk. Self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual garbage.
The CIA didn't care for the film. A little too close to home.
There's certainly a lot to be said of this film's depiction of the CIA, indeed modern day espionage overall, regardless of country, political party operation or organization, or whatever or whomever is sponsoring covert behavior. As these types of people's intellectual and technological abilities have expanded, the destructiveness of their deeds and personas and morale, along with ethnical acts have become more and more twisted and corrupt. As Angelina's character said twice in the movie at skull and bones banquettes, first they praise themselves, then they get around to GOD. Read the book of Ecclesiastes. When you get to chapter 12 you notice how Solomon begins to snap out of his own vanity which clearly on display in many parts of the previous chapters. Of course, all Scripture written is Given by The Inspiration of The HOLY SPIRIT, so I'm not implying that there's an error in the earlier chapters, just that one must discern the actual purpose of what GOD intending in having Solomon write them. In verses 13 and 14, the final verses of chapter 12, The LORD makes the everything crystal clear. I encourage all to read or reread this Scripture. And for entertainment purposes, I think that this was a very good movie about the CIA.
In 1961, senior CIA officer Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) receives a photograph and tape recording after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and obtains a coded signal from "Cardinal.”
In 1939, attending Yale University, Edward is invited to join Skull and Bones.
In his initiation, he reveals that he discovered but never read the suicide note left by his father (Timothy Hutton), an admiral who was to be named Secretary of the Navy until his loyalties were questioned.
FBI agent Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin) recruits Edward to expose professor Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon) as a Nazi spy, leading to Fredericks' resignation.
Edward dates a deaf student named Laura (Tammy Blanchard), but is seduced by Margaret “Clover” Russell (Angelina Jolie).
General Bill Sullivan (Robert De Niro) offers Edward a post in London with the OSS.
Clover's brother John (Gabriel Macht) tells Edward that Clover is pregnant with Edward's child; Laura, reading their lips, leaves.
Edward marries Clover and accepts Sullivan’s offer, leaving his new wife for London where he finds Dr. Fredericks, actually a British intelligence operative who recommended Edward for counter-espionage training.
Special Operations Executive officer Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup) tells Edward that Fredericks' indiscreet liaisons pose a security risk; Fredericks refuses to retire quietly and is killed.
In post-war Berlin, Edward collaborates with Soviet counterpart "Ulysses" (Oleg Stefan).
Learning Clover is having an affair, Edward sleeps with his interpreter Hanna Schiller (Martina Gedeck); he realizes she is a Soviet operative and she is killed.
After six years, Edward returns home to a distant Clover, preferring to be called Margaret, and helps Sullivan form the CIA with colleague Richard Hayes (Lee Pace) under Phillip Allen (William Hurt).
Monitoring Soviet activity in Central America, Edward recognizes Ulysses, who sends him an agent’s severed finger.
Valentin Mironov (John Sessions) convinces Edward he is a high-ranking KGB defector.
Edward encounters Laura and rekindles their romance, until Margaret confronts him with compromising photographs, and he ends the affair.
Another Soviet defector claims he is the real Mironov and the imposter is a double-agent.
Tortured and administered liquid LSD, he ridicules his interrogators before hurling himself out a window.
The first defector, watching with Edward, offers to take LSD to prove his innocence, but Edward declines.
At Yale, his son Edward Jr. also joins Skull and Bones and is approached by the CIA.
Despite Margaret’s pleas, Edward Jr. joins the agency.
When he overhears Edward and Hayes discuss the upcoming Bay of Pigs invasion, Edward warns him to remain silent.
Margaret moves out.
In 1961, the tape recording leads CIA specialists to deduce the photograph may have been taken in Léopoldville.
There, Edward realizes the photograph and tape are of his son.
He meets Ulysses, who plays the unedited tape of Edward Jr. repeating the conversation he overheard to his lover Miriam (Liya Kebede), a Soviet spy, unknowingly leaking the upcoming invasion.
Encouraged to spy for the Soviets in exchange for his son’s protection, Edward confronts his son, who refuses to believe Miriam is a spy.
Edward exposes Mironov as a double-agent and Cummings as a co-conspirator, who flees to Moscow.
Ulysses’ aide is revealed to be “Cardinal,” Edward's mole.
Edward and Margaret arrive separately in the Congo for Edward Jr.'s wedding to Miriam; flying to the ceremony, Miriam is thrown out of a plane.
Edward informs his son of her death and denies responsibility, but is shaken to learn she was pregnant.
Edward meets Hayes at the new CIA headquarters, noting the lobby’s Biblical inscription:
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32)."
Allen is resigning in disgrace, and the President has named Hayes the new Director of the CIA, and appoints Edward the first head of counter-intelligence.
Edward finally reads his father’s suicide note, learning that he had betrayed his country but urged his son to live a life of decency and truth.
Edward sadly burns the note, and leaves his old office for his new wing in the CIA.
A people in fear of blacks getting power again and reversing the roles of mistreatment.
While the film is an artful analogy of spy-craft during the Cold War and it should not be taken as the truth verbatim; this is not terribly far off from how things really work.
Worst Cold War film I ever saw. Dreary and tediously long.
Great movie ?
Eh don't bother renting.
would like to start 2maro … took 3 hours to download this damn app
This movie was boring. It sucked.
So…the good guy won? Was there a good guy? Oh, I'm not supposed to really know, because that's the big idea of the movie? Apparently 75% of people like undefined sides and unresolved plots; I'll pass.
This is a movie for hist9ey buffa. If you have read ww2 history, cold war history, cia and oss history.
Why isn't my movie playing???
HANG EM , HANG EM ALL!!!
very hard to follow—one minute they are talking bay of pigs 1961–next they are I 1939 ad ww2–wtf??
does anyone know how to remove the playback restriction on this and other movies? I purchased this movie and am unable to view it due to the playback error restriction due to age. I click the I understand button and doesn't work.
tedious, overlong and overly dramatically. no wonder it got shit reviews, matt damon can't lead a movie unless he speaks 5 lines
cia barely did anything in ww2 all bs
looks like a boring piece of shit, typical robert deniro movie
One of my favorite, "Quiet Storm" Movies
It all makes great sense once I watched the movie third time
A slow, not very exiting film. Plot weak. I would NOT recommend this film.
Dr Fredrick is he a good person?
It's a very good movie.
MATT DAMON!!!
Beautiful Performance By Angelina Jolie.
Simply..
Breathtaking :O (Looking Forward To see Her Movie Directed By Her: Unbroken)
I liked it 😀
really its way too thin n very much disappointed
Talk about a story that doesn't work! We're asked to give a crap about a man losing his soul when he never had one in the first place! James Angleton (Wilson) may have been exactly like this (I wouldn't know), but if he was, why should I give a shit what happens to him or even to his equally soulless wife?
Just wiki'd it:
"Sequel
De Niro said he would like to make two sequels to The Good Shepherd, one bringing the action forward from 1961 to 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the other following its protagonist, Edward Wilson, up to the present day.[26]
In September 2012 it was announced that Showtime is developing the sequel as a television series, with Eric Roth as executive producer/writer & Robert De Niro directing the Pilot.[27]"
Uh, … Why bother?? From the rest that I read, it is a very stupid badly made movie. About homosexual liaisons no less. Why not make good movies instead of shit – nobody wants what you promulgate.
This looks really stupid – not interested, should be free.
Fuck all you shyster money makers – google has it listed as being legit.
Hollywood is crap – thank God I don't watch tv or movies – not getting a cent from me pinkos 😀
did i miss something