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Reviews Counted:161
Fresh:90
Rotten:71
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: This fictitious CIA origin film is an overlong, tedious effort that leaves viewers with more questions than answers.
Runtime: 2 hrs 48 mins
Genre: Dramas
US Box Office: $59,839,040
Synopsis: With THE GOOD SHEPHERD, Robert De Niro (A BRONX TALE) makes an ambitious return to the director's chair. A labor of love for Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth (FORREST GUMP), the film tells an... [More]
Starring: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Joe Pesci, John Turturro
Director: Robert De Niro
Told with a visual efficiency that belies the film's considerable length, Shepherd is a muscular, unsentimental movie about shadow warriors and dark compromises. It takes its audience's intelligence for granted and rewards it at every turn.
The cinematic spy world has never been so dreary.
If you think George Tenet's Central Intelligence Agency was a disaster, wait until you see Robert De Niro's torpid, ineffectual movie about the history of the agency, The Good Shepherd.
Perhaps it's fitting that a movie about the early CIA be tangled and opaque, but this drama loosely based on the life of uberspook James Angleton verges on incoherence.
The Good Shepherd is not an easily embraceable picture, but the story it tells is simply too compelling to dismiss, even at its ugliest.
The Good Shepherd leaves you longing for the other, better political thrillers it evokes.
While [De Niro is] a whiz with actors, he's no Francis Coppola, and his calculated, observant tone grows cold.
Unfortunately a heavy pace and an unnecessary time-jumping device mar "The Good Shepherd." That said, the intricate story is blessed with an intelligent script (by Eric Roth) and brilliant performances.
Stoic, simmering and almost film noir, The Good Shepherd creates a very dangerous and intriguing world
The film finally resembles nothing so much as its most persistent symbol: an objet d'art crafted to impress with empty trickery.
It's a chess game, played out on celluloid,
Matt Damon is so good at action, you wish he'd been given some here. Instead, buttoned up in his company-man suits and snap-brim hats and Clark Kent specs, he's all inwardness, an impenetrable blank.
Seems to have been inspired by two of De Niro's more celebrated movies, 'The Godfather Part II' and 'Once Upon a Time in America'; if it lacks the bravura set pieces of those films, it at least unfolds with its own whispery integrity.
Damon's slow realization of his family's seemingly endless cycle of unhappiness is heartbreaking, even if we are way ahead of him.
A historical drama that's as dry as a textbook.
...a rich film that rewards careful attention...
an offbeat epic, a chronicle of espionage and skullduggery that features little in the way of traditional action... But the movie is exceedingly well-made... and full of eerie atmosphere.
The tempo takes some getting used to, but it's only a matter of time before the sinister urge of the C.I.A. takes hold, and De Niro's aesthetic choices start to find their groove.
The movie remains only academically involving.
Solid, respectable filmmaking, egregiously overlong (a plague this time of year, it seems) but still highly watchable.
July 07, 2008:
De Niro Looking for More Good Shepherds 
It played to lukewarm reviews and middling box office, but Robert De Niro still wants to follow up The Good Shepherd with a pair of sequels. More...
March 04, 2008:
Rush Hour 3 Takes '07 DVD Rental Crown
It may not have been quite the box-office phenomenon that its predecessors were -- and critics may have disliked it enough to keep it down at 20 percent on the Tomatometer --... More...
December 20, 2007:
Box Office Guru Preview: Five New Films Fight For Holiday Cheer
Moviegoers are in for a feast as studios will unleash a wide menu of new options on Friday trying to reach holiday patrons on the weekend before Santa comes to town. With so... More...
January 15, 2007:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: "Stomp" Steps All Over New Releases
Stomping into the number one spot over the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend was the college dance drama "Stomp the Yard," which grossed an estimated $22M in... More...
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Get all the latest movie updates, reviews, interviews and features here.
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