Movie review: "The Good Shepherd"

From the order of the Skull And Bones at Yale to the Office of Strategic Services during WW2 to the organisation it became, the Central Intelligence Agency, the life of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is spent toiling in secret for his country.

Wilson wastes no words and maintains a blank expression, but it’s a credit to Damon – who ages believably over the course of the story – that when questionable situations arise, we can sense his moral misgivings.

At 165 minutes, "The Good Shepherd" feels less like a movie than a TV miniseries, though you’d never find one of those that co-starred Jolie, Baldwin, De Niro (who also directs), Gambon, Hurt, Hutton, Pesci and Turturro.

While overlong, the film succeeds as a rough history of the CIA – focusing on the botched attempt to overthrow Castro in 1961 – and, like 2005’s "Munich", a depiction of the terrible private toll on dealers in deception and death.

“The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep."

[Australian cinema release date: February 15]