The Good Shepherd
I’ve been pretty negative here at Wild Tangents lately. I trashed the Miami Vice movie. I’m afraid it doesn’t get any better with the puzzle of a movie The Good Shepherd. I know it’s going to be an obvious thing to say, but one piece of this puzzle that didn’t fit was the length. It really dragged out in a way that made it seem like De Niro was trying to stretch it out to “epic” length. A large part of the dialogue was really bad too. I mean bad enough to be on par with George Lucas. I have to give props to the actors though. The acting and camera work are the only pieces of this puzzle that make it viewable. Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon really pulled out good performances even with such poor material to work with. The appearances by Di Nero, Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin were well done and clever. Even the overall story the script tells is decent. I wish it had been better. I wish the good pieces had fit better without the bad pieces. But in the end, I most wish I could have that 156 minutes of my life back.
