One hour longer than a great movie

Rating: 4/10 (2 January 2007)

In my opinion, The Good Shepherd was too long, could have been at least an hour shorter and been a lot better. The movie spends too much time attempting to be cryptic in order to display the dark and secretive side of the CIA. Small characters are introduced only to be killed off or exposed in order to show that no one can be trusted. For me, that point was made clear after one person proved untrustworthy. Matt Damon's performance is wonderful, but Jolie was simply miscast as the suffering wife of an invisible man. Her face and body language constantly ooze sex and temptation. It's just not believable that she would be the quasi-faithful, ignored wife, who only cheats once in the years her husband is away. The movie is not without merit, however, as its story and style are fair. The style in which it is filmed is full of technical subtleties which keep my hand from giving the movie a lower score. All in all, The Good Shepherd is not a horrible movie, but there are things about it that could have been done differently in order to make it better.