The Good Shepherd (2006)

The tumultuous early history of the Central Intelligence Agency is viewed through the prism of one man's life. My biggest problem with The Good Shepherd is definitely the outrageous 167 minutes and the pacing was so slow and boring plus seeing Matt Damon dressed as a woman and singing gave me nightmares and even tho the cast is fantastic and talented such as Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, Robert De Niro and William Hurt are all of them fantastic actors but their characters were just very one note and pretty lame and it's a real shame and De Niro himself should probably start making great movies again instead of things like this. (5/10)

There are more than enough comments and reviews about this movie that convinced me it needed its own audience to appreciate it fully. If you're interested in how the intelligence services recruit, train and conduct their business, this is definitely a movie for you.The story follows Matt Damon as a young man throughout college, explaining when and how he became an OSS and later a CIA non-official cover operative. This movie will describe the line between a soldier and a spy. Excellent casting, excellent directing.

I was a very late getting around to watch to this. I had heard all the rave reviews and thought it was going to be an epic. I decided to see it on VOD over the holiday. Boy, I wish I hadn't. This was a huge disappointment. It was an over-long boring watch. Yes it was stylish, yes it had a great impressive cast, yes, it had great acting, yes it was beautifully filmed and yes it had a huge budget, but it was over-inflated and self indulgent. The characters were one-dimensional and lifeless. The plot was dense and over-complicated. It was difficult to watch, like wading through treacle. Never once did it draw me in. I was not gripped by any part of the plot and I hardly managed to get through it. Matt Damon is a great actor, but his character remains blank and dull and too young to be convincing in this. I just was left feeling blank myself.

This one pathetic movie. Two brother's who have no purpose in life. They find and become obsessed with the same woman. One brother marries her while the other one cheats with her, then dumps her. There is not one single redeeming quality in either one of the brothers. I don't know what the other reviewers were smoking when they watched this movie. Maybe they were just glad it wasn't another Johnny Depp flop and that was all they needed to give it such high praise. I highly do not recommend this one. I will say, in all fairness, the acting performances were very good across the board - every single actor delivered on that. Cinematography was also very good. But the plot sucked big time.