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Created Jul 08, 2007 12:57AM PST • Edited Nov 24, 2016 02:09PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Terrifically well acted by a bevy of single-name movie stars (Damon, Jolie, De Niro, Hurt, Baldwin, Pesci), and more than competently directed by De Niro himself, this is a high quality – albeit long and fictionalized – exploration of how the CIA found itself at odds with the values of the America it was created to protect.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

14. Visuals Good 3.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.8

    Several rushed, shadowy couplings, most notably between a lushly fecund Angelina Jolie and a naïve Matt Damon. Of course, Angelina Jolie is such a to-the-manner-born movie queen that she would produce at least a 1.5 sexiness rating simply reading the phone book.

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.0

    Some close order killing.

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    New York liberal De Niro seems relatively restrained in his fictionalized take on the CIA. Including actions long part of CIA lore seems fair game, e.g., prisoners jumping out of windows after receiving LSD as a truth serum and water boarding. Matt Damon’s character is apparently a composite, means liberties were taken, including the kind of happenstance that only emerges from Hollywood, e.g., intertwined family and romantic dramas leading directly to a major foreign policy debacle.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.5

    For a spy movie, even one that was ostensibly biographical, there was precious little super human derring do.

24. Physical Natural 1.0

    seemed straight