All Around Bad Movie, Full of Holes and too Long

Rating: 1/10 (10 April 2007)

This movie had a lot of potential to be great. However, it was ruined with the cast, the pace, editing (or lack thereof), and writing. The plot was excellent.
The Good Shepherd skips around a lot and doesn't always tell you where you are in the story line, there are also a lot of holes. For example, how does a Poetry/English major at Yale become a leader of the CIA/OSS? What is this character's attraction to deaf girls? Why doesn't Matt Damon and Angie Jolie age at all in the movie? This is supposed to be a span of about 20-25 years and they don't age from 20 to 45 at all. Why is this movie skipping from place to place? Why on earth was it three hours long? Why did Robert DeNiro cast himself as an Irishman? Why is DeNiro incapable of being in any movie without Joe Pesci? A lot of big names with a lot of let down and most of the script is either too confusing or too ridiculous to be even remotely believable. I wasn't expecting a documentary here, but I was expecting to be interested and entertained. What was nice was there were no ridiculous loud special effects or gore. That was one positive and really the only one about the movie. If you have three hours to kill and want to fall asleep this is a good movie to watch.