User reviews

The Shepherd is Disney's attempt at Christmas ghost story. In the style of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

It is inspired from a novella from thriller iter Frederick Forsyth.

Ben Radcliffe plays the young RAF pilot flying over the North sea on Christmas Eve in 1957. His father too was in the air force who was shot down in World War 2.

Only the pilot encounters electrical issues, he loses communication and he is low on fuel. With no contact on the radio, total cloud cover and a few minutes of fuel remaining. He has no options but to say his prayers, have flashbacks to better days.

Suddenly he sees an old Mosquito plane and a pilot who will shepherd him to a runway.

The short film written and directed by Iain Softley is a tribute to the shepherds of the air during World War 2 that guided lost planes.

It is beautiful to look at, predictable with an emotional ending. I wonder if this would had been even more effective if it was shorter.

The story is fine, but unremarkable.

What I found distracting was the subpar CGI. The plane looks like a plastic model during the exterior shots, an effect exxagerated by the studio lights shining all over it.

Similarly, you can easily discern the studio accent lighting in the eyes of the pilot, and on the surface of the cockpit cowling.

I never believed for an instant that the wayward pilot was actually in an aircraft. The monochromatic acting by Radcliffe was probably influenced by the fact that he was sitting in a mockup in a studio somewhere. The flat delivery of his lines merely underscored the low budget feel of this short.

Even the fog at the end looked like it was being generated just out of sight of the camera, and then being gently blown across the scene.

Travolta's appearance was probably filmed in a day... more likely just a couple of hours. He's... there... and that's all that can be said of him.

A short story that will warm your hearts for Christmas. This movie gave me so much hope and reminds that the end of the year and the holidays are all about hope, and love. It was merry, suspenseful, and had so many emotions that it brought tears to my eyes. I am so happy I got to start my holidays with this beautiful movie.

For the plot, it is a story of a young flying officer who wants to go home for Christmas to his girlfriend whom he dearly loves, however mid air his flight suffers multiple technical failures and he gets stranded over the north sea. The rest, you better watch and find out.

I remember a lie which really touched me, I guess it goes like "Lizzie I am not scared but sad of all the things we would not be able to do together..." Definitely lovely!

This is one of my favourite short stories by Frederick Forsyth.

I was looking forward to this film -- the visuals were nothing short of superb, but some of the elements introduced by Disney were disconcerting, even jarring.

It would appear that some of Disney's choices for acting talent were driven by political correctness. I very much doubt that there were that many black RAF personnel in 1957. The U. S. Air Force may have had many African-American personnel, but I doubt that the RAF had.

What I really found jarring, even grating, was an air-traffic-controller with a noticeable African accent. Could they not at least have featured an actor with a prominent English accent?

From a common sense point of view, the movie doesn't make much sense to me.

1. Secondary compass is a standard device for a pilot since forever.

2. Electrical failure doesn't equate to conpass failure. Especially in the pre-digital era, the compas and altimeter would still work with the engine off and now power. Same with speed meter. They were purely mechanical devices based on earth's magnetic field, pitot tube (dynamic/static pressures), air density/pressure/temperature. Fuel gauge also used to by purely mechanical back then, and that one seemed to work till the very end.

3. The behaviour of the pilot doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It's like he never went through any common sense training. If you have any sort of issues with the plane's controls early in your trip, you don't push forward for your destination, you get back and land.

4. If you have compass and altimeter failure and see a cloud front, you avoid it at all costs.

5. Basic training also covers (to this day) star and sun nativation. Yes, if you know the time and date, you can easily determine with good precision the cardinal points and navigate to land. It doesn't make any sense that he starts doing "triangle formation" over the see when he still had plenty of fuel. You find land at all costs and try to find an empty field or road or something. Given the full moon he had during that night, it should have been really easy. It absolutely doesn't make any sense to ditch over water with land km away.

6. Also, the way he tried to "save fuel" didn't make much sense to me either. If you want to maximise endurance, you basically have to fly at minimum power which still keeps you in the air while gliding the plane. Each plane has a different maximum endurance envelope/settings and it's a combination of engine settings, flight controls settings, altitude and speed - no "triangle formation" required.

7. Overall - absolute rubbish. The entire movie doesn't hold water from a technical point of view. The existence of ghosts is more believable to me than that pilots' behaviour.

I do not know the short story by Frederick Forsyth . I am not familiar with aviation details . And I liked this short film, first for message, second for the pleasant story status before Christmas.

No doubts , many motives to critic him, including for political correctness drops and for some unrealism in large slices. But I love Gothic stories - and, in this case, its elements are well present, I saw with sympathy the craft of tension and I was just happy discovering John Travolta in a role reminding his early ones.

The sin ? Maybe predactibility. But it is a Disney film and Schedryk covers all defects .

I have seen short movies before, and they were really great. I think they were able to convey their message in a short period of time, creating a great experience. Sadly, this movie is not one of them! It was really boring from the beginning and also predictable towards the end. I could see the finish line a mile away. The only good things I can say about this short play are the acting and the cinematic shooting; other than that, it was failing across the board on everything else. Whoever came up with the idea to make this short movie, what were they thinking?! Did they wake up one day and say, "Oh! I have a great idea for a movie"? Highly NOT RECOMMENDED!