This is Robert DeNiro's second film as director, and he does a fine job. Nothing "signature" about his style, but quality work throughout.
Good ensemble cast, but the main focus is on Matt Damon who plays Edward.
So, what makes Edward a good shepherd?
When he was a young boy, his dad committed suicide. Edward stole the suicide letter before anyone else entered the room, and then he told everyone the shooting was an accident. He admitted that secret at his Skull and Bones initiation, but that was years later. He kept the suicide note, but he didn't read it until decades later.
That note turned out to be a simple apology. His father apologized for being a coward, and in the part he wrote to Edward, he encouraged him to fight for the life he wanted.
Did Edward end up living the life he wanted, or did he live the life that was expected of him? In the end, was he okay with that?
Edward doesn't reveal much. He has learned that to reveal is to expose vulnerabilities, and in his profession, that's not something he can let happen.
When he's working counterintelligence in post-World War II Berlin, he lets himself momentarily get too close to his secretary, only to immediately suspect/learn that she's working for the Soviets. He immediately has her killed. He never regrets killing her. He simply regrets making the mistake of getting too close to someone.
He never gets close to his wife, Margaret (Angelina Jolie). That relationship, too, started out as a mistake. They have sex the first day they meet (she initiates it by questioning his manhood/orientation), and she ends up pregnant. He was dating someone at the time, but he immediately ghosts his girlfriend and marries a woman he's not in love with. He never talks about regretting his marriage, but as soon as he is married, he takes on the counter-intelligence assignment that sends him away to Europe. He doesn't see his son for the first 5 years of his life. For reasons never explained, he never once goes home to the United States in those 5 years. Not once.
The simple way to explain it: He's married to his Country. He sacrifices everything to make America safe. Is that what makes him the good shepherd. Does he really buy into what he does for a living? Or does what he does for a living give him purpose, and does it work to make him feel like his father's death wasn't in vain?
I don't have all the answers to his psychology. I just end up feeling sad that he's not able to be the good shepherd to his wife, or son. His son ends up with a girl that's a Soviet agent. That completely unlikely event forces Edward to make a choice: be subject to blackmail to protect his son, or tell his Soviet counterpart he will not protect his son at the expense of the United States. Ultimately, he makes his choice, and while the Soviets don't hurt his son, they do throw his bride out of a plane when she is flying to her wedding. Brutal scene.
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