The Good Shepherd (2006)

Awards

Academy Awards: Oscar won & 508 nominated
Won 1 award & 23 nominations
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Users' rating: 7.1

142 votes

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About the movie

Year

2006

Runtime

2 h 47 min

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Country

United States

Director

Robert De Niro

Writer

Eric Roth

Plotline

The tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life.

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Starring

Matt Damon

Angelina Jolie

Robert De Niro

Michael Gambon

Eddie Redmayne

Main cast

Matt Damon Edward Wilson

Angelina Jolie Margaret 'Clover' Russell

Alec Baldwin Sam Murach

Tammy Blanchard Laura

Billy Crudup Arch Cummings

Robert De Niro Bill Sullivan

Keir Dullea Senator John Russell, Sr.

Michael Gambon Dr. Fredericks

Martina Gedeck Hanna Schiller

William Hurt Philip Allen

Timothy Hutton Thomas Wilson

Mark Ivanir Valentin Mironov #2

Gabriel Macht John Russell, Jr.

Lee Pace Richard Hayes

Joe Pesci Joseph Palmi

Eddie Redmayne Edward Wilson Jr.

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External critics' reviews

A remarkable study of the corrosive effects of fear and power on an establishment insider who puts duty above all else. more

One of the most impressive movies ever made about espionage. more

It's the type of film that may be forgiven its imperfections when they are compared with the vastness of its accomplishments. more

De Niro pulls the viewer into the world he has created and holds him there, sometimes spellbound, until the story is over and the end credits roll. more

While a bit unwieldy at nearly three hours and at times slow going, the film is absolutely fascinating for anyone who shares De Niro's passions. more

It's taken a dozen years for Eric Roth's smart, thoughtful, psychologically complicated script to reach the screen under Robert De Niro's careful and methodical direction, and it is easy to see why. more

Damon is terrific in the role--all-knowing, never overtly expressing a feeling. Indeed, so is everyone else in this intricate, understated but ultimately devastating account of how secrets, when they are left to fester, can become an illness, dangerous to those who keep them, more so to nations that base their policies on them. more

The Good Shepherd is serious adult moviemaking, a truly surprising effort from De Niro, a man deeply interested in the art, craft and psychology of espionage. He seems to believe that we'd better be interested in it, because it's interested in us. more

A cool-headed thriller, and a richly detailed character study that traces the birth and evolution of America's foreign espionage bureaucracy, The Good Shepherd also marks a significantly more mature, assured directing turn from Robert De Niro. more

Roth's screenplay, steeped in the peculiar rituals, lock-jawed repression and smug sense of superiority of the WASP ruling class that both shaped America's intelligence community and made it vulnerable, is less interested in derring-do than back-room deals and the day-to-day drudgery of spying, driven by the notion that espionage is a cynical high-stakes game played with people's lives and the ante is human decency and connectedness. more

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