If you like long movies with lots of flashbacks, then this movie is for you.

Rating: 3/10 (1 January 2007)

How bad can a movie be? At what point should the critic stop ragging a movie? The Good Shepherd inspires such questions. It is a long movie. It is a tedious movie. It is, literally, a sleeper. The acting, the story, the direction, is almost amateurish. The main characters are uninteresting, the dramatic conflict contrived, the plot predictable, and whoever plays Matt Damon's son, well, he is arguably the most annoying presence on the movie screen in years. The only time this movie perks up is in the scenes with Robert Di Niro and also when a man takes a flying leap through a window. But the movie's most annoying qualities are its pomposity, its pretentiousness and its repeated use of flashbacks. Hence, a new warning: Beware of the flashback, it can ruin a movie.
Also, this movie contains one of the most flagrant examples of miscasting in recent movie memory. The decision to cast Angelina Jolie as a submissive housewife defies logic and is another reason why this movie is truly remarkable but for all the wrong reasons.