The Good Shepherd

3 hours. You can feel it, too.

The Good Shepherd is about the lifelessness of a man who is an essential part of the beginning of the CIA. And the movie's tone takes on quite the lifeless feeling. There's really no feeling towards the characters. There's not a lot of feeling towards anything. It's a movie that looks like it should be amazing thoughout, and yet it's just a lot of dead air. The fact that it's directed by Robert De Niro and includes quite a number of wonderful actors do even more to draw attention to it. But the fact of the matter is that there's just not a lot of substance. It's the kind of movie people will feel like they should like. I foresee a popular reaction to this movie by the typical American audience being, "yeah, it was pretty good." Why? Because that's what people say when they think a movie is good even though they didn't really like it. And that's just the kind of movie this is. As for me, I don't really think it was very good. Had some good technical work and a good overall look to it, some good performances (although Edward Jr., both versions of him, did much to annoy me), and little things that were positive. 3 hours though... that's pretty damn long. And reminiscing upon it, having just seen it less than an hour ago... I couldn't tell you very much about the movie at all.

C

IMDB profile on THE GOOD SHEPHERD