Movie Review – The Good Shepherd (2006)

Overall 2.0 / 5.0 (meh)
Gay Content 1.5 / 5.0 (one minor gay character)
Gay Positivity 2.0 / 5.0 (may or may not be explicity anti-gay, but neverthefilled filled with neg stereotypes)

What might have been an interesting, taut examination of the creation of the CIA and its high-level activities during the Cold War turns into a tedious, plodding, overlong yawner. Poor, self-indulgent editing and drifting storylines rob the movie of drama. Having said that, the movie enjoys some great performances.

Angelina Jolie was perfectly cast as Margaret, a passionate, vivacious woman trapped in a loveless, lifeless marriage. Meanwhile, Matt Damon does an excellent job as Edward Wilson, her husband and a high-level CIA operative, even though he’s given little to work with. Edward is such a bloodless character whose major conflicts are completely internalized that it would be easy for him to come across as bland and un-engaging. But Damon manages to give him subtlety and to seize on those scenes where the character has been given some humanity, such as a moment when Edward (in London) is asking his wife Margaret (in the States) about the color of his newborn son’s eyes.

I can’t really comment on how much the story of the CIA has been fictionalized / dramatized. The movie seems to be a well-researched period piece with exact attention to detail, but I’m not qualified to judge; maybe the screenwriter Eric Roth just has a brilliant ability to incorporate detail into his scripts.

The movie does contain a gay character. Michael Gambon portrays Dr. Fredericks, first seen as one of Edward’s college professors who turns out not to be what he seems. Unfortunately, this character falls into several very negative gay stereotypes, although I have to give Dumbledore, er, I mean, Gambon props: he created an engaging, charming, and three-dimensional character out of a cardboard cutout. In fact, he gave the character a soul, more than most of the characters in the movie. I gave the gay positivity score a .5 bump which I attribute entirely to Gambon’s wonderfully nuanced performance.