Movie Review: The Good Shepherd

There's plenty more where this came from. Two Hours and Forty-Seven Minutes more.






The Good Shepherd has all the right people: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert DeNiro, and ... Joe Pesci? Not to mention the dude that looks like Joe Montegna (the guy who does the Fat Tony voice on the Simpsons, but it's actually John Sessions). It has the right script: the beginnings of the CIA, spy movie, betrayal, elite secret Ivy League Societies, Angelina Jolie sex, and did I mention Joe Pesci doing his classic youse guys voice? Somehow though, the sum doesn't equal the parts. Imagine the Talented Mr. Ripley, mixed with some Angelina Jolie sex and some quirky Robert DeNiro roles, with My Cousin Vinny's Two Yoots Scene. Most would think, "Awesome, I love all of that; this movie is going to rock!" Unfortunately, most of the movie consists of the BORING parts of Talented Mr. Ripley, only one sex scene of Angelina Jolie (in which we see no skin), a sprinkling of DeNiro's scenes peppered throughout the movie, and a contrived Cousin Vinny trying to come off as a very serious character.

This movie was too long and drawn-out. The running time for the movie is almost 3 hours. THREE HOURS! I thought a spy's life was supposed to be fast-paced and exciting, like the Mission Impossible and James Bond series. Instead, there is a lot of waiting around. There is also a lot of Matt Damon doing nothing but talk on the phone and talk quietly to people. Ok, so maybe this was based "loosely" on a true story. Still, we are watching a movie! I want to be entertained. This movie hardly kept my attention. The only entertaining part was trying to figure out who tipped off the enemy.

The movie attempts to explain/investigate the beginnings of the CIA. However, the only "insight" given is that some General (played by Robert DeNiro) recruits some of the best and brightest from Yale to be a part of the President's idea of intelligence. Instead, the main storyline that connects the whole movie, is figuring out how the Bay of Pigs invasion turned into a disaster. How did Fidel Castro and the Russians know the Americans were going to attack them at that time and place? Who tipped them off? If you are dying to know like some of the characters in the movie, I'll let you in on it:

Matt Damon receives a photograph and an audiotape that the CIA operatives immediately determine to be made by Russians.

The director spends the whole movie, jumping back and forth through time, slowly and painfully developing Matt Damon's character mostly from his college days at Yale, but also as a little boy who witnessed his father's suicide. Then the focus shifts from Matt Damon to his son and his son's desire to please his father. Once the movie's focus shifted to Damon's son, it became pretty easy to figure out. Hmm... why else would they devote so much of that precious 2hr47min. to his son? Could it be because the movie is setting up the audience for the "surprise" revelation?

It's the ease of figuring out the culprit that is a problem I have with most Mystery/Suspense movies these days. This movie could have been better if it was more of a "whodunit?" type of flick. Like Clue... ah, one of my favorite movies in college. They just don't make movies like that anymore.

Arguably, the movie is also about family life, the difficulties of balancing long work hours with raising children, and the stress of being a CIA operative on one's mental and social life. That is a sub-plot, but it's not what the movie is advertised to be. This movie is yet another attempt at making an old idea new by dressing it up in a fancy costume.

I will admit, it's always nice to see Angelina Jolie go at it and it was nice to see what the original Ole' Boy's Club was like back in the 1930's and 40's. Beyond that though, I'm still not sure how the CIA began, which I thought was the whole point of the movie. Unless you have a voracious appetite for the BORING, or just want to go because you are in love with Matt Damon doing nothing, then stay away from this movie. It isn't even worthy of being part of your queue in Netflix.

Grade: C