The real James Angleton.
I recently saw this film on television after repeatedly trying to catch it, having caught the very first part of it sometime prior.
This movie deals with remarkably similar content to the HBO miniseries The Company, which is really good That is, it follows an individual in the CIA throughout his career in critical parts of the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, the character played by Matt Damon is a highly fictionalized version of James Angleton (and other early CIA figures) and he is a character, played by Michael Keaton, in The Company. Unfortunately, unlike Keaton's excellent performance, Damon's falls flat here.
Indeed, as Damon is a good actor, we're really left wondering what exactly went wrong. The film starts out in an interesting enough way early in World War Two, grossly departing from the real story of Angleton, to say the least, but after the early university scenes it just becomes an odd combination of violent, odd, and boring. The central character joins the OSS, but unlike the real OSS and various British agencies, this enterprises is deadly even against its own members. This carries on to the post war CIA. Throughout it all, Matt Damon sort of slogs through scene after scene like an automaton, unlike Keaton's portrayal of Angleton which is mesmerizing.
This film was directed by Robert DiNiro, who has a bit role in it. Based on this, I'd have to say that while DiNiro is a great actor, his talents don't translate to directing.
I'd skip this one entirely.
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