George Clooney in The Good German.
Jolie and Damon in The Good Shepherd.
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Studio executives must be pulling their hair out over the fact that two movies with similar titles are debuting this week. It's hard enough to distract filmgoers during the holidays with the plethora of serious dramas at their disposal—this being the start of awards season. However, to further the confusion, the two pictures in question—The Good Shepherd and The Good German—are both costume pictures that have something to do with political intrigue. To make it a bit easier The Good Shepherd is the one in color, while The Good German is in black and white. Neither, unfortunately, is particularly 'good.'
The Good Shepherd is one of those movies that—from its weighty subject matter ( the history of the CIA set against the backdrop of 'human emotions' ) to its top-drawer, Oscar-winning cast ( including Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert DeNiro and William Hurt ) —screams 'prestige.' But like other pictures of this ilk, 'prestige' often means 'Dullsville.' It's a joyless, bloated epic that makes you scratch your head in wonder: 'This is what DeNiro ( who directed ) spent ten years passionately trying to get made? Really?'
It's not that the rise of the CIA, with their 'code words,' dirty tricks and willful nastiness, aren't worth revealing. But let's face it—this is one hell of a creepy subject to spend almost three hours with if you're going to go the Important Picture route. And the tone of the movie is so somber and mind-numbing—going from one hateful episode to the next—that even interest in the by-the-book fictional characters wedged into the real events fades.
The movie begins in April 1961, when Edward Wilson ( Matt Damon ) , a founding member of the CIA, is overseeing the operation to invade Cuba and displace Castro. But the mission's failure points to a stoolie within the organization. Someone squealed to a prostitute in a cheap hotel room about the forthcoming invasion. A blurry photograph of the room and an illicit tape of this tryst is all the evidence that Wilson has to go on. 'There's a stranger in our house,' he's told by one of his superiors and is advised to find the culprit. Something about this mission causes Wilson to look back over a life dedicated to secrets and lies.
We begin with Wilson's initiation into the ultimate WASP male organization, Yale's ultra-secretive Skull and Bones club, which happens in 1939. This secret society—which values adherence to traditional American values, discretion and, of course, money and power—was ground zero for the CIA. After successfully passing the sexually-tinged initiation rites, Wilson proves his loyalty and becomes a welcome addition to the group. He is next tapped by a U.S. Army general ( DeNiro ) to help start the covert agency known as the OSS, which would later become the CIA.
During this process we see that the well-born Wilson is haunted by the suicide of his father but don't find out much else about him or his other socially elite friends or family. Apparently, he just never learned to say 'No' or 'I'll get back to you' and so when he's called into service, he blindly hops to it. He soon gives evidence that sends his liberal poetry professor, Dr. Fredericks ( Michael Gambon ) , packing. Next he quickly falls hard for the dazzling debutante Margaret ( Jolie ) . When she becomes pregnant, Edward, who has fallen in love with a deaf girl, nevertheless does 'the right thing' and weds Margaret.
But quickly he's called to Europe to help with espionage work behind the scenes at the outset of World War II. Startlingly, his old prof is also part of the team but when Fredericks' taste in gay escorts supersedes his discretion, Wilson stands by and does nothing while the professor is murdered. After that, moving from WWII into the Cold War, Edward seems only to have loyalty to the job and the other agents ( and a more beautiful crop of CIA operatives you've never seen, including Billy Crudup ) . Nothing seems to phase him—not the disintegration of his marriage or even the distant relationship with his son. Then, finally, when the inevitable Sins of the Father get visited on the son, Wilson finally stirs from his rock-hard formation—sorta.
By that point however, DeNiro's lavish, glossy epic, so top-heavy with the weight of its subject and so tedious, has slowly, slowly, slowly sunk beneath the waves of its good intentions.
Director Stephen Soderbergh has gone in another direction altogether with The Good German, but with similarly dismaying results. With his regular star George Clooney at the helm, Soderbergh attempts to pull off the same trick that Todd Haynes so brilliantly used in Far From Heaven: shooting a new movie in the artificial style of an old one but without the old morality code that kept the lid on the frankness. And what movie fan wouldn't love to see a modern-day film noir set in postwar Germany a la The Third Man or Billy Wilder's Foreign Affair? It's a truly tantalizing idea.
But though Soderbergh has a marvelous cast ( including Clooney, Cate Blanchett as a scheming German prostitute and Tobey Maguire as a repulsive opportunist ) , he doesn't seem to know what to do with them. Like the Coen brothers' overrated The Man Who Wasn't There proved, getting the look and feel of an old film noir isn't so hard to do; it's having a good story, dialogue and characters that are absolute must-haves.
But none of those essential elements are here—from Clooney's distracted journalist to Blanchett's breathless fallen woman to Maguire's dopey turn as a baddie. Soderbergh has managed to recreate something from Hollywood's past alright but, unfortunately, it's less than what he was aiming for. They used to call them B pictures—and that's exactly what The Good German is.
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For an overview of holiday films and DVD releases, check out the Dec. 13 Knight at the Movies guest spot on www.windycityqueercast.com . You can also find archived reviews at www.windycitytimes.com or www.knightatthemovies.com . Feedback can be left at the latter Web site.