Seen: April 6th, 2007
Format: HD-DVD
Rating: 8
We've all got secrets. Some big, and probably a bunch of small ones. But they generally don't have global impacts and tear our lives apart. No so for Edward Wilson.
The Good Shepherd has a rather amazing feel to it. It's a deceptively long film, but maintains a simple stately pace from one moment to the next. We don't get tired because there's really not much tension in the film. Actual confrontations are short and fairly understated. There's no high violence. Things are taken care of neatly and quickly. This is very true to character.
What the film does have in spades is a lurking sense of constant menace. Like the sea, it is full of sharks, quietly cruising, going about their business. Occasionally they surface, quickly do their damage and submerge again, patient, watching, waiting.
Unlike fanciful visions of intrigue and action (the Bond series comes immediately to mind) The Good Shepherd is about how secrets are kept and discovered. This film is rife with secrets. Everyone has them, and everyone is generally interested in everyone else's. Some of the secrets are large, some small. Some personal, some of global importance. Some are ancient, some brand new. All of them cause conflict, sometimes pitting a character against himself.
We judge these characters as the spy world judges them, by how well they keep these secrets. Those weakest are readily exposed and used as pawns in the game. Those strongest are in danger as well, because which secrets they know is a secret in itself. All of this secrecy breeds fear and eventually contempt.
Performances and writing is excellent here. DeNiro constructs a milieu which is tight and focused. It all feels accurate and very real. Where it would be easy to descend into cliche and melodrama, we instead are given plain graven stoicism, something new to this genre, and very appealing.
In the end there is sacrifice, as the characters are consumed by the very secrets they harbor. They all come apart slowly in one way or another. But it never really boils over, because that is just not part of the game.
The Good: Understated performances
The Bad: Secrets
The Ugly: A life lived for others reasons
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