The most impressive thing about director Robert De Niro’s sensational The Good Shepherd is its clean delineation from the trappings of the spy movie genre. Here’s a movie that is all about the birth of modern intelligence gathering and espionage and there’s not a single car chase, gun fight, or tricky techno-gadget in the entirety of the film. Seriously, there not even one vodka martini … shaken, not stirred. Instead, the coolest thing going for it is its silence. Loads and loads of silence. That’s because The Good Shepherd is in fact about listening, and De Niro, along with screenwriter Eric Roth, do best when that’s what’s moving things forward.
The story orbits around Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), a man so stoic, he’s like carved marble, barely expressing a single emotion and rarely speaking anything that isn’t weighted with great importance. However, the film makes a curious misstep with its timeline, skipping about haphazardly around from Edward’s early childhood, where he witnesses his father’s (Timothy Hutton) suicide, to more than twenty years after he’s married and raised a son of his own, jumping back and forth with such frequency it’s often difficult to know here you are. There are flashbacks in flashbacks.
Still, in all that time between youngster to a man well into his fifties, much around the world has changed and he’s right in the epicenter of a new field of defense, spawned in the years after World War II. It’s counter intelligence on a whole new level, and Edward proves himself one of the best in the business, his global reputation earning him the nickname “mother” for his harrowingly effective skills.
We see in his university days, his affections turn to a deaf girl named Laura (Tammy Blanchard), whom he finds solace and community in her silent universe. However, not long after they meet, he attends a party and meets Margaret ‘Clover’ Russell (Angelina Jolie), the ravishing younger sister of his friend John Russel (Gabriel Macht). Clover is sexually aggressive and that night on the beach, seduces Edward into sex, where she becomes pregnant, forcing him to abandon Laura and commit to a woman he does not love. Not that it matters much, he’s soon off (leaving his wife behind) to Europe in the years after the war, eventually working in Berlin where German scientists are in hot demand and the Soviets and Allies are quickly snatching them up. This puts Edward in contact with his Soviet counterpart, “Ulysses” (Oleg Shtefanko), and with mutual respect, a gentleman’s game of world dominating cat and mouse begins.
So, at just shy of three hours, this is a story of patience as Edward organizes clandestine operations to affect change for the US, while he – in time – returns to the states and takes his place as a father for his son, who grows to follow in his footsteps (played as an adult by Eddie Redmayne). There are a ton of things in play all the time, with a mystery, grainy, black and white film clip at the center of it the McGuffin throughout. However, I want to discuss a scene that starts the third act (at nearly the two hour mark). It’s the film’s most ‘action’ centered moment, the most physically violent and jarring, but also reflective of the film’s entire theme. Let’s take a look.
THAT MOMENT IN
It’s the mid-60s and the Cold War is escalating. Edward is in Europe, the war of words between the Soviets and the United States ramping steadily. Plates are spinning and Edward is overseeing much of it. One day, a Russian man requests asylum, claiming he is a high ranking official in the Soviet KGB (their counter-intelligence organization). His name is Valentin Gregorievich Mironov (John Sessions) and Edward brings him into the fold, cautiousness, as he is one to do.
A short time passes, and the story visits other threads until one day, Edward and his team get a call. It’s another Russian from the KGB. And he too wants asylum. His name? Valentin Gregorievich Mironov (Mark Ivanir). What?
They bring him in, he claiming the other Mironov is an imposter, who is really Yuri Modin, working for “Ulysses,” and that he’s the real KGB man who wants to switch sides. Sensing a trap, Edward oversees an interview, he looking in through a two-way mirror with the first Mironov beside him at the second Mironov tied to a chair with Edwards right hand man in control of the questioning. That man is Ray Brocco (John Turturro), who until this very moment, has been, much like his boss, a quiet, reserved fellow who walks into rooms and whispers into ears. That’s about to change.
Brocco leans heavy into the new Mironov, repeatedly telling him to speak his real name, prompting the captured man to reply over and over that he is in fact Valentin Gregorievich Mironov. This refusal to give up what Brocco thinks is a ruse, seems to amuse him. Just give up the name. Nope.
And then … BAM. Brocco reaches back and unleash a fist onto Mironov’s face that has him reeling back so hard the chair topples over. It’s so jarring, you jump. And it’s only the start. “See what you made me do there?” Brocco says.
He tells the second Mironov that they aren’t going anywhere. Today, tomorrow, next week, next month … this is where they are at. Tell him his real name. But it’s not changing anything, and the man repeats again and again the same name: Valentin Gregorievich Mironov. Brocco loses it.
The beating begins. His face become pulp. Brocco and two thugs in the room then strip him nude and flops a black cloth bag over his head and Brocco grabs a pail of water and starts pouring it over the mask, repeatedly demanding he say his real name. This goes on.
Meanwhile, Edward and the first Mironov watch in silence, and there’s a disconcerting voyeuristic quality to these cutaways that give the larger hands-off yet in charge attitude that Edward occupies both as the man and as representative of the organization. When Brocco is unable to break the man through violence, the interrogation shifts to chemicals, with Edward approving the use of an experimental ‘truth serum’ called Lysergic acid diethylamide, or as it’s better known as, LSD. What happens next, I won’t spoil. It’s crazy. And it ultimately has Edward rethinking much about whom to trust.
That’s a common theme in this slow cooker that leads not so much to an explosive end, but a traumatic one. The film really divided critics and theater-goers, the purposeful pace and talky nature of the spy game not one many embraced, we an audience weaned on action. Surely, I agree, and warn those considering giving this look to understand what they are in for. Damon is exceptional, doing some of his best work, able to express so much with barely a word of even a change in his face, yet many criticized the performance for just that. Jolie is fantastic and all around, there are very impactful moments, with a host of big names that come and go, again, related to the very themes of the story.
This moment is crucial and it paints a larger takeaway about the message and direction of the soon to come CIA, national defense, and methods used to protect it. This scene is purposefully larger than the rest of the film (save for its end) and lingers greatly after, the tactics at the time very familiar to the public who were learning of such ways in the wake of 9/11.
The Good Shepherd is a must for spy fans and while it might not be entirely accurate (the CIA took notable exceptions to a few liberties), it’s well worth a look.