An Unflinchingly Moody Spy Flick

The mood of the film was relentlessly dark in its portrait of the world of espionage. Damon maintained a brooding consistency throughout the film of quiet secrecy that was reflective of a character completely immersed in deception. The role, which was a partially true rendition of the life of James Angleton, a legend in the early days of the CIA, was fascinating. Interestingly, Damon's portrayal was quite similiar in nature to the approach Michael Keaton had in playing the same character in the mini series " The Company" (2007), which I also enjoyed. In fact, " The Company" covers some of the same aspects of Angleton's real life, for example his relationship with the real life British traitor,Kim Philby, aka Archie Cummings in this film. All in all I found the movie very entertaining, yet the one critique I would make was that of DeNiro's part in the film. His role was in actuality, I believe, that of Wild Bill Donovan, the founder of OSS and the predecessor of our CIA. I thought his scenes were awful. Maybe his mind was on the overall production, as he was directing the film, but I found his lines pretentious and his delivery unusually poor. Considering that he is, in my opinion, the greatest actor of this generation, I was frankly a bit dumbfounded.