ROBERT De Niro has waited 14 years to direct his second movie and while his first, A Bronx Tale, was an intimate take on growing up in the 1960s, The Good Shepherd is a sprawling epic about the birth of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Writer Eric Roth, whose past credits take in Forrest Gump and Munich, tries to keep us interested by showing the creation of the CIA through the eyes of one man, Edward Wilson. Inevitably, he's a shadowy, emotionless figure - which a blank-faced, immobile Damon does to perfection and, as a result, we couldn't care less about.

Yale student Wilson's career begins in 1939 when he joins the secret Skull and Bones society, a training ground for future world leaders. His patriotic stance makes him an ideal candidate for the intelligence services. After working with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the Second World War, he becomes one of the founders of the CIA as the Cold War gets chillier.

While he's brilliant at all the spying stuff, his lack of people skills at home alienate his wife (a miscast Jolie - can you see her as a dutiful good woman left doing the housework while hubby plays at being James Bond?) and make it impossible to get close to his son (Redmayne).

De Niro casts himself as the US army official responsible for recruiting Wilson.

It's a small but showy role, leaving him free to produce an unshowy, workmanlike movie.

He uses his all-star cast with skill but I longed for a bit more excitement.

Spying may not be the glamorous, allaction job that fictional agents like 007 make it, but a movie needs something more than talk to get its audience excited and interested, especially when the movie runs nearly three hours.

Starring: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, Robert De Niro, Michael Gambon, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Joe Pesci, Eddie Redmayne, John Sessions, John Turturro
Running time: 167 mins
Rating: Three stars