A well constructed intrigue, spanning the psuedo intellectuals from Harvard's secret society pretending to be elite patriots, to the founding of the CIA, their role in the Bay of Pigs and the interactions between the Russians and USA during the cold war. I agree that it goes slow, but that was the nature of the cold war.

The timeline jumps around but every one still looks the same and they dont explain whats going on and we were just scratching our heads the whole movie and then gave up.

I take great offense at pretentious, totally made-up, fully fictional films that nonetheless advertise themselves as being part of history. This is one of those films. And it's nothing but used toilet paper.

Do not waste your time. If you do start watching this movie, FAIR WARNING: it does not get better, EVER.

I rewatched this as a 45 year old man with my son in mind and see the flow of this movie so well executed in the outline the message that loose lips sink ships boys! (boy>Harvard>cia>steering the USA towards democracy on the back bone of Trust as the lesson in this movie.)I think it should be used as a MEANS to educate the youth about why American voters are trying prevent foreign and domestic adversaries from stealing your country.

This was released in 2006 but could (and should) have been made today. The bad reviews then most likely were because reviewers and viewers couldn't believe our government could be so corrupt. It was and is.

This film delves into the profound depths a person is willing to plunge to avoid betraying their homeland, exploring the potential personal toll of such betrayal. Edward Wilson, driven by his predetermined destiny, prioritizes his allegiance to the country over love and family, a choice stemming not solely from personal experiences but also from the haunting legacy of his father's suicide at the age of six. Wilson Sr., burdened by the shame of betraying his country, chose a tragic end, which significantly influenced his son's path. The protagonist's decision-making is further complicated by a letter from his father, left unread deliberately to emphasize that Wilson Jr. evolves independently of paternal guidance. Consequently, the ultimate choice between love, family, and country remains consistent throughout the movie. "The Good Shepherd" unfolds as a suspenseful narrative, with a mystery that intensifies as the storyline progresses. This structure mirrors the persistent questioning in Ayn Rand's "Who is John Galt?" from Atlas Shrugged, establishing a thematic parallel. The film tirelessly seeks to unravel the espionage enigma surrounding the investigated film obtained from a Russian Spy. As the puzzle pieces fall into place, the movie successfully answers the central question, providing a satisfying resolution. In essence, "The Good Shepherd" is a brilliant exploration of the impact of leading an honorable, trustworthy life as a shepherd to one's nation, even if it comes at a considerable cost. The film prompts reflection on the sacrifices made by government agents who, despite meager financial rewards, scant recognition, and forsaking nearly everything, remain dedicated to their jobs and love of their country. Besides the compelling question addressed in the film, the most crucial aspect for me is the creative manner in which the intricate conundrum is presented. "The Good Shepherd" skillfully weaves a narrative that captures the complexities of allegiance and betrayal and engages the audience through a thought-provoking and artfully executed exploration of loyalty, sacrifice, and the enduring impact of one's choices on both personal and national levels.

Okay at best. De Niro has made a movie that is too much of a slow-burn and with that the life of the movie gets sucked out of it.

Wow a movie with a lot of big name actors and so little material & SO LITTLE action... Directed by Robert De Niro (several cameo appearances as General Sullivan) this script is underperformed in many ways. Matt Damon is so tightly wound as a character he's a stiff zombie in a suit. Angelina Jolie is a pretty dress that gets to emote twice in the film (yawn). Alec Baldwin, William Hurt and even Joe Pesci are rolled out in tiny cameo wooden stereotype roles too. Evil Russian spymaster entraps Damon's son too (really.., seen it..) I can see why Hollywood LET the writers go on Strike! The only interesting person in the story was Laura, the jilted deaf lover.. & that loose end goes pffft? Ya, I gave it a: "Oof that was Rotten"

This was an interesting story with a great cast of characters about espionage and war, trust and deceit. If you expect to be entertained like you would with a James Bond or Mission Impossible film, you will quickly find an alternative. It was somewhat crushing to see Angelina Jolie emotionally destroyed after her dazzling start. Matt Damon seems unchanged and the same age throughout the imperceptible flashbacks spanning 30 years. So many other actors are given cameo appearances and quickly vanish. Ultimately, we are left with the emotionally guarded, near-mute performance of Matt Damon who wrecks his personal life by uninvolvement, and is rewarded professionally by being trusted to do more of the same work forever. The end is as dull as the beginning.

Those who liked THE GOOD SHEPARD liked it for the right reasons; those who didn't like it didn't like it also for the right reasons. The fact that it was a little too long and sometimes >felt< boring, was probably not a mistake in the screenplay or direction. TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY also took a very similar approach to a very realistically lifelike story about the utterly mundane horror of the world of espionage and the actuality of its inelegantly drab/mundane reality — all of which makes any realistic story or movie about anything whatsoever considerably difficult to sit through. In short? Dinero and the terrific cast, other than sets and costumes, didn't add any "James Bond-esque glamor" to the FUBARed reality of the filth necessary to attempt to stay ahead of a real enemy who is also making the very same to do the very same thing to you. THE GOOD SHEPARD is a superb movie in all respects [including authentic mundane reality]. I'll be watching it again to pick up some of the things that I probably missed. NOTE: If you're an action fan only? Stay as far away from THE GOOD SHEPARD as possible because you'll only end up whining about something that's not in your arena in the first place.

Definitely peels back the layers of cronyism and politics. Great movie great acting.

In 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion ends disastrously. Senior CIA officer Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is warned there are suspicions of a mole in his department. Returning home, he finds a photograph and audio recording of a man and woman in bed. However, the recording has been tampered with and certain details are unclear. In 1939, while attending Yale, Edward is invited to join the Skull and Bones fraternity. During his initiation, he reveals that he discovered but never read the suicide note left by his father Thomas, an admiral who was to be named Secretary of the Navy until his loyalties were questioned. FBI agent Sam Murach recruits Edward to expose his poetry professor Dr. Fredericks as a Nazi sympathizer, which leads to Fredericks' resignation. Edward begins dating a fellow Yale student named Laura, who is hearing impaired. After an announcement that World War II has begun, Laura asks Edward to sleep with her, but panics at the last moment. In 1940, Edward attends a party and meets Margaret "Clover" Russell, sister of fellow Bonesman John. He is also introduced to General Bill Sullivan, who tells him the US will soon be compelled to enter the war and offers Edward a job in foreign intelligence. Clover, whose father is a Senator and head of the isolationist America First Committee, is attracted to Edward and he eventually succumbs to her advances. While on a date with Laura at the beach, Edward is approached by John, who tells him Clover is pregnant and insinuates that Edward is obligated to marry her. Laura, reading their lips, walks away. On Edward and Clover's wedding day, he is presented with orders to leave for London. There he is reunited with Dr. Fredericks, in reality a British intelligence operative who had recommended Edward for counter-espionage training. Special Operations Executive officer Arch Cummings informs Edward that Fredericks' indiscreet liaisons pose a security risk. Fredericks refuses to retire quietly and is killed. In post-war Berlin, Edward collaborates with Soviet counterpart "Ulysses" in the exchange of captured scientists. During a call home, his son Edward Jr. inadvertently reveals that Clover is having an affair. Edward impulsively sleeps with his office's interpreter Hanna Schiller, but discovers she is a Soviet operative, leading to her murder. In 1946, Edward returns home to a distant Clover, who now goes by her birth name Margaret; they both admit to having had affairs, and she reveals that John was killed in the war. Edward is again approached by General Sullivan, this time to help create the CIA with colleague Richard Hayes, with Phillip Allen as director... Rotten Tomatoes consensus states: "Though ambitious and confidently directed by Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd is ultimately a tedious drama that holds few surprises and succumbs to self-seriousness." In her review for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote, "The Good Shepherd is an original story about the C.I.A., and for the filmmakers that story boils down to fathers who fail their sons, a suspect metaphor that here becomes all too ploddingly literal", but praised De Niro's direction: "Among the film's most striking visual tropes is the image of Wilson simply going to work in the capital alongside other similarly dressed men, a spectral army clutching briefcases and silently marching to uncertain victory". Kenneth Turan, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, praised Matt Damon's performance: "Damon, in his second major role of the year (after The Departed) once again demonstrates his ability to convey emotional reserves, to animate a character from the inside out and create a man we can sense has more of an interior life than he is willing to let on". Time magazine's Richard Corliss also gave Damon a positive notice in his review: "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". In his review for The New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Still, no previous American film has ventured into this still largely unknown territory with such authority and emotional detachment. For this reason alone, The Good Shepherd is must-see viewing". USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "What makes the story work so powerfully is his focus on a multidimensional individual—Wilson—thereby creating a stirring personal tale about the inner workings of the clandestine government agency". Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum praised De Niro's direction and Damon's performance, noting the latter's maturation as an actor. Newsweek magazine's David Ansen wrote, "For the film's mesmerizing first 50 minutes I thought De Niro might pull off the Godfather of spy movies ... Still, even if the movie's vast reach exceeds its grasp, it's a spellbinding history lesson". However, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine observed that, "It's tough to slog through a movie that has no pulse". In his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Jim Emerson wrote, "If you think George Tenet's Central Intelligence Agency was a disaster, wait until you see Robert De Niro's torpid, ineffectual movie about the history of the agency". Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars and criticized Damon's performance: "And why is Damon allowed to act in such a callow, boring way? As ever, he looks like he is playing Robin to some imaginary Batman at his side, like Jimmy Stewart and his invisible rabbit. His nasal, unobtrusive voice makes every line sound the same". (Via Wikipedia) "The Good Shepherd" is as boring as watching paint dry. Too long and simply too tedious. I think Rotten Tomatoes consensus sums it up the best way by saying as mentioned above "Though ambitious and confidently directed by Robert De Niro, The Good Shepherd is ultimately a tedious drama that holds few surprises and succumbs to self-seriousness."

An extremely complex story that demands your full attention. The more you rewatch it, the more it rewards you.

This film definitely held my interest. One of Matt Damon's better films.

An overly long movie that being a spy is a lonely life to have.

It's sure nice that this movie made the glowing-in-the-dark crowd scoff and recoil in anger that their profession was being portrayed as a cesspool occupied by borderline-souless sociopaths. That means that the story did something right. What this story didn't do was reach even a third of The Spy Who Came From The Cold's greatness. It has nothing to do with the fact that the former is a purely fictional story. You think this movie isn't fiction all throughout? Blaming the Bay of Pigs leak on one guy eavesdropping through a window? Really?  Don't fear, because this movie is full of American ego stroking where they pretend that they are a true neutral arbiter of the playgrounds and that they would never overextend their hegemony.  Despite being 3 hours long, this movie still feels incomplete. Probably because they wanted to make a sequel stretching to maybe the USSR's collapse. But it wasn't meant to be. The movie sure looks great. The costumes, the cinematography, set pieces, the constant shadow figures and the atmosphere. All top notch.  Matt is the other thing completely. This wannabe Angleton misses the mark so hard. He barely emotes, yet is given a full dish of emotional family drama that you don't buy for a second. It is clear that he is supposed to feel distant towards them, but they just feel fake. It's the family of an actor who pretends like he's occupied by CIA duty, not an actual agent who sells his soul out for the good of the country. Choosing spy games over humanity.

It's understandable that Robert De Niro after years of being involuted in the movie business would sooner or later want to try directing a movie. Unfortunately, the result is a slow and ineffective film. Robert De Niro's connections will surely have been a factor in assembling a prestigious cast, and some distinguished cameos prove it, some like Joe Pesci appearing for only a few seconds. "The Good Shepherd" is the story of how the U.S. CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was born and developed from the end of World War II to the Cuban crisis, in fact "Baia dei Porci" appears among the events that of the film. The story is told in a way that is not entirely linear, and some passages can be difficult to follow. The film has excellent cinematography and is the only thing that prevented me from falling asleep during the viewing. Matt Damon, in part because of the character he plays, emerges as a dim and one-expressed figure. All in all, a mediocre film that is quickly forgotten. ... Sorry Robert, better to stay an actor and let others direct.

Robert De Niro at his second directorial feat grew confident with ambition through recognizable style that he seemingly took note of from acclaimed directors he collaborated with mixed into one formulaic, tediously lengthy, somewhat incomprehensible story under typically intellectual deliverance amid stylish execution, whilst faithfully grasped composited facts for sensible atmospheric grip then saved room for personal human drama being more affected thanks to a brilliant cast's performances. (B+)

Not a whole lot happens, but one of the more realistic takes on life in the intelligence community.