The Good Shepherd

This is an interesting film to see Matt Damon starring in. He plays one of the founding agents of the CIA (although we're told it should be CIA not the CIA because God doesn't have The in front of Him). Matt's character is extremely emotionless, almost melancholic, he trusts no one and moves through a range of espionage experiences in an extremely insenstive bureaucratic way. Some of this is to be explained by his discovery of his father's suicide (although he decides to withold the letter to his mother & himself, not reading it for three decades). The only time when he seems to show concern for the 'elimination' of anyone is when he gives up his former college poetry tutor, who has committed the offence of indescretion. The whole of this agent's world is riddled with double lives, double agents, the blurring of reality, conspiracies and nothing is quite as it seems. Matt is immune from the horrors around him, and deals with every event in his life - both public and personal - in the same way - coldly, and almost heartlessly. He has his own agenda, and he is incapable of diverting from this pre-determined route.
Robert de Niro (as director) maintains the pace, tension, and in many ways the horror of this life - although on-screen violence is limited, this in many ways makes the awfulness of the world of spies worse.
My rating: 7/10