Review of The Good Shepherd (2006) by Sam J — 17 Jul 2010

After watching this movie, I kept asking myself 'Who? Why? Where? What was the point of all this?'.

This was supposed to be a movie about the fictional account of the origin story of the C.I.A., but you wouldn't have guessed that from watching this, the term C.I.A. is only mentioned two times.

I want give a short synopsis of what this movie is all about, but I can't for this movie because it never explains the plot, there is no story arc, and it is filled with so many characters and subplots that you can't follow anything.

So let me just start with some of the problems.

1. There is no exposition, nothing is explained. The story bounces form one place to another, continuously introducing characters that don't serve any purpose but to simply say a few lines then disappear.

2. The movie makes little to no effort to address its topic, it's like I said, it's supposed to be about the formation of the C.I.A. but it's never mentioned except once in a small line of dialogue and then at the very end. There is no showing who was involved, historical figures are only mentioned but never shown, historical events are treated as footnotes to further an inconsistent plot.

3. The numerous subplots were distracting, there's one about Matt demon's character and his family issues, then there's one between him and his real love that he met in college, then there's another one about a Russian spy that actually to Russian spies. And it just keeps going with so many little things happening it's very distracting.

4. The numerous characters, I already mentioned this but I have to make a point of it, there are so many characters that show up out of nowhere, who they are is not explained, what they do its never explained, why are they important that's never explained as well. There are characters that show up for a two minute scene and they never show up again. Then characters that are present in the beginning then don't show up until the end of the movie, if you were just going to do that why bother with them in the first place.

5. Too many scenes of characters just mumbling words to each other, these guys are just standing the dark wearing their suits and hats and raincoats even though it's not raining and whisper codes or secrets to each other. This is for a mysterious effect that doesn't work here because if what their saying it so important then shouldn't the audience know it as well. And the main character played by Matt damon was very annoying. He remained stone faced throughout, he barely ever speaks and they made him wear a pair of ridiculous glasses, the type you wear as a costume prop to make you look really geeky the ones that magnify your eye balls so it looks comical, yeah those ones.

6. The acting wasn't bad, most of the cast here try to do a good job but their characters are dull. Let me list the cast that is here; William Hurt, Timothy Hutton, Alec Baldwin, Michael Gambon, Angelina Jolie, and the great Robert De Niro. Some really good talent here that never really was able to do much because the script wouldn't let them.

Now there were some good aspects I should mention:

1. Joe Pesci, yeah the infamous, the great, the super BADASS Joe Pesci, the reason I didn't mention him in the cast is because he only show up for one scene, a short three minutes scene. What? You get Joe Pesci to come and be in a movie and you only get him for three minutes, and he has to share that scene with the annoyance of Matt damon's character. Joe Pesci was amazing he breathed life into this movie, he was by far the most interesting character and actor on screen and what do they do, they give him a three minute scene and his never mentioned again.

Another actor that was also really good was John Turturro, he is one of my favorite actors and he was great to watch.

2. This is directed by Robert De Niro, in his brilliant career he has worked with a number of great directors, most notably he was Martin Scorsese's go to guy for lead roles, and Francis Ford Copolla's chose in 'The Godfather Part 2'. Along the way he must have picked up some tips and he does a good job of directing. Some of the camera angles and the choice of lighting in some scenes were interesting.

Over all, 'The Good Shepherd' was quite boring; I know that not a proper criticism but it was. The continuous talking, the seemingly endless parade of characters and the incoherent script leaves you with more questions than answers, you're always asking 'Who was that guy? Why did they kill him? Who are 'they'? What does this have to do with anything that happened before?'. It's over two and half hours of something that might put you to sleep.