Translated material
Evil Band-Aid
“The False Temptation” by Robert De Niro on Moscow screens
In April 1961, the CIA's covert operation, code-named Operation Zapata, to invade Cuba failed miserably when someone in the know apparently tipped off the Cubans. Among the main suspects is one of the highest ranks of the department and, in fact, its creator - Edward Wilson (Matt Damon). And while he is intensely thinking about who the “mole” really is, the story of the last almost 30 years of his life flashes before his eyes. And a lot happened during this time.In the late thirties, an exemplary Yale Philology student, Wilson became a member of the elite secret society Skull and Bones, was soon recruited by the FBI to expose the alleged Nazi collaborator Professor Fredericks (Michael Gambon), and later accepted an offer from General Sullivan (Robert De Niro). ) to participate in the establishment of a new national security department and from that moment on falls into the whirlpool of espionage passions. Just a week after his wedding to the delightful Margaret (Angelina Jolie), Wilson goes to London to feed disinformation to the Nazis, engage in counter-propaganda (for example, he invents the news that Hitler has syphilis), and later to Germany, from where he transfers relevant people to the Nazis. moment of nuclear physicists. Thus, he meets his wife only after the war, and sees his son for the first time when he is already six. But even after returning to America, Wilson is not very concerned about his family - he has more important things to do. First of all, conduct a long-term duel with a Soviet agent known under the pseudonym Ulysses. And in the end, come to an agreement with him that will ruin many lives, but not Wilson himself.
It’s generally difficult to approach him. Almost devoid of emotions, with an expression on his face that does not change, like a somnambulist, Wilson, it seems, is truly devoid of a soul - only he sold it not to the prince of this world, but to his homeland, although, to be honest, in almost three hours, which there's a movie going on, sometimes it seems like it's the same thing. In any case, Wilson’s infernal nature is difficult not to notice: at least the years passing on the screen do not affect him. The wife is aging, the son is growing into another member of Skull and Bones, FBI agent Murak (Alec Baldwin), eaten by cancer metastases, is dying before our eyes - and only the age-makeup specialists seem to have forgotten about the hero Damon. He still looks through his glasses, almost without blinking. And this view of his best answers the question asked by CIA Director Allen (William Hurt): “Why do we choose a profession that pays pennies and is impossible to relax for a minute?”
Of course, “The False Temptation” (in the original, by the way, called “The Good Shepherd”) is not the usual spy film, although all the signs of the genre seem to be there and the heroes sometimes act, if not like Bond, then exactly like Stirlitz (here and the number on the dollar bill, which is the password, and secret documents hidden in the book cover, and communication through a booth in the church confessional). Most of the characters in "Temptation" have prototypes in the real history of the intelligence services: Yale graduate Archie Cummings (Billy Crudup), who later took a not very low position in the CIA, and then turned out to be a Soviet spy who fled to Moscow (we last see him in a hotel room " Ukraine") clearly resembles Kim Philby; the character of Phillip Allen is largely based on Allen Dulles, who was director of the agency during the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation; General Bill Sullivan - from Wild Bill Donovan, who headed the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, during World War II. The facts of Wilson’s own biography are in many ways similar to the life and fate of the founder of the CIA counterintelligence, James Jesus Angelton. Everyone speaks in a low voice, trying not to look each other in the eyes (unless you have to read lips). The film also doesn’t seem to be suitable for an anti-state action (such a depiction of the American intelligence services is difficult to remember not only in overseas, but also in our cinema during the Cold War, like “TASS is authorized to declare”). And in general, it’s quite difficult to say what Robert De Niro was guided by when he started working on the film: he nurtured the idea of his second directorial work, as we know, for almost ten years.
Perhaps his grievances against the intelligence services are of a purely personal nature (do not forget that several years ago De Niro took on the Tsar's agents in "Meet the Parents" with visible pleasure). But the most important thing is that you don’t really want to think about it. Because for a long time now it has been impossible to get completely physiological pleasure from a long and, by and large, not particularly exciting film. It seems that this kind of epic canvases, as if specially produced for Oscar nominations, with an excellent cast, carefully reproducing the era and dedicated to topical problems of modern history, have been - and are - quite a lot. But while watching them, you look at the clock more often than at the screen, and in the case of “Temptation” you want it to last and last. And even when a Soviet spy, pumped up on LSD, starts singing “May there always be a dad,” the last thing anyone wants to do is laugh. Be that as it may, in recent years Robert De Niro has never starred in a film directed by a director of this level. It’s timely to repeat Professor Fredericks’s assessment of Wilson’s poems at a time when he was just preparing to commit his first betrayal: “Well, it turned out quite stylish. There is a feeling of the unknown. And the size is correct."