♥♥♥♥♥
+ Best Period Movie of the Year
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| A piece of Matt Damon's bespectacled profile superimposed with the insignia of the CIA are the main visual elements on this sparse, seriousness-indicating poster for Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd |
Wilson aka. 'Mother' becomes the newly begun Central Intelligence Agency's eminence during WWII, but following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961, Wilson is confronted with his late father and his own worst sides.
The Good Shepherd is written by Eric Roth (The Horse Whisperer (1998)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Robert De Niro (A Bronx Tale (1993)), who here takes up extensive duties as co-producer, director and co-star.
The film is a unique tale of the US and USSR intelligence agencies, as the Cold War got underway, and their mutual dependence, built around a human drama. That drama doesn't throw around grand gestures, but it comes with an eerie finale, SPOILER as Wilson gets his son's fiancée thrown off a plane.
Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity (2002)) gives one of his career's best performances as an understandably dumb bastard (Wilson), and the rest of the fine cast are also impressive. Ann Roth's (Hope Springs (2012)) costumes are very well done, and some of writer Roth's lines spouted by Damon's cowboy-like spy come off with sparks.
Related posts:
Robert De Niro: The Irishman (I Heard You Paint Houses) (2019, VOD) - Scorsese's great gangster epic of growing old and death (co-star)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) - Tender moments, great De Niro in uneven romantic dramedy (co-star)
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
15 Minutes (2001) or, Bad Cynics in New York City (co-star)
Cop Land (1997) - Stallone faces corruption and turns in some good acting in fine crime drama (co-star)
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy (co-star)
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance (co-star)
Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie (co-star)
Angel Heart (1987) - Parker's stylish devil-lurking holds limited punch (co-star)
The Deer Hunter (1978) - Cimino's great, colossal Vietnam epic (star)
Cost: Reportedly around 90 mil. $
Box office: 100.2 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.11 times its cost)
[The Good Shepherd premiered 11 December (New York) and runs 167 minutes. The project was begun in 1994 for Francis Ford Coppola. Other talents who were near it include Wayne Wang, Philip Kaufman, John Frankenheimer, Graham King and Leonardo DiCaprio. The 110 mil. $ budget was cut down to "under 90", necessitating Damon and other stars waive their usually higher salaries. Still Angelina Jolie (Salt (2010)) was reportedly paid a hefty 8 mil. $ for her performance. De Niro traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia to Moscow as research, as well as studied CIA history. Shooting took place in the Dominican Republic, London, England, New York, Connecticut and Washington DC from August 2005 - January 2006. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Night at the Museum, holdover hit The Pursuit of Happiness and new release Rocky Balboa, to a 9.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weeks in the top 5 (#4-#5-#5) and grossed 59.9 mil. $ (59.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 5 mil. $ (5 %) and Italy with 4.1 mil. $ (4.1 %). The film was nominated for the Best Art Direction Oscar, lost to Pan's Labyrinth. It won the Silver Bear prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was lambasted by CIA historians for its veracity. De Niro expressed ideas to make two sequels to the film; since 2012 a TV-series spin-off has been brewing at Showtime, with De Niro in talks to direct the pilot. De Niro has not returned as a director since but returned as an actor in Stardust (2007). Damon returned in Ocean's Thirteen (2007); Jolie in A Mighty Heart (2007). The Good Shepherd is rotten at 55 % with a 6.14/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Good Shepherd?
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