The Good Shepherd (2006 film)
| The Good Shepherd | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Robert De Niro |
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| Written by | Eric Roth |
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| Music by | |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | Tariq Anwar |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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167 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $90 million |
| Box office | $99.5 million |
The Good Shepherd is a 2006 spy film produced and directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and De Niro, with an extensive supporting cast.
Although it is a fictional film loosely based on real events, it is advertised as telling the untold story of the birth of counter-intelligence in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
A photograph and an audio recording on reel-to-reel tape are dropped off anonymously at the home of Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), a senior CIA officer, after the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba fails due to an undisclosed leak.
In 1939 Edward is at Yale University and invited to join Skull and Bones, a secret society. He is compelled to disclose a secret as part of his initiation and reveals that as a young boy in 1925 he discovered the suicide note left by his father, Thomas (Timothy Hutton), although he says he never read it. After the ceremony, a fraternity brother, Richard Hayes (Lee Pace), tells him that Edward's father was to be chosen as Secretary of the Navy, until his loyalties were questioned. Afterwards Edward is recruited by an FBI agent, Sam Murach (Alec Baldwin), who claims that Edward's poetry professor, Dr. Fredericks (Michael Gambon), is a Nazi spy, asking Edward to expose his professor's background. Edward's actions result in Dr. Fredericks' forced resignation from the university.
Edward begins a relationship with a deaf student named Laura (Tammy Blanchard), but while on Deer Island, Edward meets his friend John Russel's (Gabriel Macht) family and is later aggressively seduced by his sister Margaret 'Clover' Russell (Angelina Jolie). General Bill Sullivan (Robert De Niro) asks Edward to join the OSS, offering him a post in London. Later while Edward and Laura are at the beach, Margaret's brother privately reveals that she is pregnant, so Edward marries her. At the wedding reception Edward accepts the London OSS office position, while his new wife remains in the United States. In London he meets Dr. Fredericks again, who is actually with British intelligence. An intelligence officer in the British SOE, Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), tells Edward that Fredericks' indiscriminate homosexual relationships pose a security risk. Edward is asked to deal with his mentor, who refuses to protect himself by returning to teaching. Shortly afterwards, he is brutally murdered and his corpse dumped into the Thames while Edward watches.
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Wikipedia