The Good Shepherd

Reviewed by Max Foizey.

Release Date: December 22, 2006
Director: Robert De Niro
Starring: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, John Turturro
Rating: R

So here I am on my Christmas vacation, when my editor calls me asking where my review for 'The Good Shepherd' is. I was supposed to turn it in a week ago, she reminds me. "Now I know we're all enjoying our vacations, but I need this review" she says. I could have told her I was super-busy at the moment, visiting family or drinking eggnog or singing carols, but the fact is I wasn't busy at all when she phoned, unless you'd call checking out some clips of Neil Gaiman on YouTube busy. I assured her I'd have the review finished by close of business that same afternoon, and got to work. The real reason, constant reader, why my review had yet to materialize is because I was in no mood to revisit this picture in my mind, it being the joyous Christmas season and all. And 'The Good Shepherd' is the antithesis of joy.

I am not exaggerating when I say if this was the first film I ever saw, I would swear off movies forever.

It certainly has a very impressive cast - and why wouldn't it? I'm sure these talented people jumped at the chance to work with Robert De Niro, who makes his second stab at directing a film with this project. (He also has a bit part.) Plus it's about the origins of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Raging Bull making a movie about the CIA, FBI, and the secret society Skull and Bones! This must be intriguing stuff, right?

More like sleep-inducing. I've never been so bored watching a movie in my life.

This film would have benefited greatly had it been told in chronological fashion, but the ultra confusing opening leaves you scratching your head as time shifts forward and backward for no apparent narrative reason. I'm all for flashbacks, but this isn't "Memento."

Matt Damon is a young go-getter who is selected by William Hurt to work his way up in the OSS (which will become the CIA) and serve his country at the expense of everything else in his life. I'm sure there is a compelling story in there somewhere, but it's not on display in this film. (Hell, this review is more compelling.)

Matt Damon's blank slate acting style worked well in Scorsese's "The Departed," but here he just comes across as ...dead. It's the most comatose acting job I've seen since Val Kilmer was Batman. William Hurt looks like he's having fun here, as he did in Cronenberg's otherwise forgettable "A History of Violence." (Hurt is of course, a god among men and can do no wrong.) As Damon's long suffering wife, Angelina Jolie is stuck with Anne Hathaway’s part from "Brokeback Mountain,“ but instead of her husband being gay, he's married to the government. Billy Crudup does his best Wesley Windham Price impression as a limey spy, and Alec Baldwin wears a fedora well, but it all adds up to nothing.

Did I mention it's LONG? I'm talking almost three hours of WHO CARES?

In addition to hosting 'Max on Movies' on Sunday nights at 7pm on 97.1 FM Talk, Max appears weekly on the Dave Glover Show Fridays at 5pm. A member of the Saint Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, Max has written about film and theatre for various print and Web media, and appeared as guest critic on various nationally syndicated radio shows. Max lives in Missouri and yet is a diehard Miami Dolphins fan. He looks forward to resuming his holiday break.