The Good Shepherd
"The Good Shepherd" is a suspenseful, informative 2-3/4 hour movie about the creation of the CIA spanning some 40 years up to the early 60s and Bay of Pigs fiasco. Scenes of Matt Damon going through Yale’s Skull & Bones initiations and retreats at Deer Island reminded me of Bush father and son, not to mention John Kerry, being members of this elite secret society. Another reminder was of George Bush, Sr., as CIA agent during the Cuban Missile Crisis and short-lived Kennedy era and later as CIA Director under Reagan. (See http://www.totse.com/en/conspiracy/dead_kennedys/161963.html.)
Matt Damon was superb as the quiet, patriotic, emotionally constrained agent that was forced to suffer his demons in silence. After all, that’s the nature of his work. Secrecy and suppression. The movie had a great cast of characters, superbly directed by Robert DeNiro, as well as his portrayal as a diabolic diabetic general. The cinematography in capturing the era and suspense was stunning. There was a very poignant scene at the height of Cold War tensions where a Russian is being tortured by a CIA agent, a la beatings and water boarding. The bloodied man is put on LSD as a truth serum to force him to confess who he "really" is besides being a defector that’s he’s claiming to be. The big moment for me came when the Russian blurts out that "Russia is no threat to America...Russia is a bloated cow." Bingo. Nations have always needed a "threat", an enemy, to maintain power and beef up its arsenals, even if the threat is imaginary.
"The Good Shepherd" is movie making at its best about the “evil we do in the name of good”, to quote our local Tucson movie critic, and it gets my Oscar vote (if it counted!). See http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/review.php?id=1895 for a review.
May you not buy into "the threat" and learn to see other as yourself!
Matt Damon was superb as the quiet, patriotic, emotionally constrained agent that was forced to suffer his demons in silence. After all, that’s the nature of his work. Secrecy and suppression. The movie had a great cast of characters, superbly directed by Robert DeNiro, as well as his portrayal as a diabolic diabetic general. The cinematography in capturing the era and suspense was stunning. There was a very poignant scene at the height of Cold War tensions where a Russian is being tortured by a CIA agent, a la beatings and water boarding. The bloodied man is put on LSD as a truth serum to force him to confess who he "really" is besides being a defector that’s he’s claiming to be. The big moment for me came when the Russian blurts out that "Russia is no threat to America...Russia is a bloated cow." Bingo. Nations have always needed a "threat", an enemy, to maintain power and beef up its arsenals, even if the threat is imaginary.
"The Good Shepherd" is movie making at its best about the “evil we do in the name of good”, to quote our local Tucson movie critic, and it gets my Oscar vote (if it counted!). See http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/review.php?id=1895 for a review.
May you not buy into "the threat" and learn to see other as yourself!
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