stryder1

I went to this film wanting to like it. The story seemed interesting and the cast had many of my favorite actors. The film is advertised as a story about the beginnings of th CIA. Well its not really, it's a hodge podge story of one man's life within the CIA. I am not a fan of movies that jump back and forth in time to tell a story. In some cases it can work but it is only a device and should be used sparingly. The Good Shepherd does this many times. The movie has a few glaring errors in it which make little sense. Overall the cinematography was good and there were some good scenes along with a few good lines but this film telegraphs where its going a lot. The movie is a little long at almost 3 hours. About 45 more minutes on the editing room floor would have improved the pace and not really lost any of the story. It's just my opinion but I think your movie dollar would be better spent renting this for $3 than paying $20 for a theatrical showing. 5/10

I didn't really understand on why this movie was rated so low, until I realized that to really enjoy this film you needed to grow up watching horse operas on Saturdays. This means to appreciate the humor, you're probably closer to 40 than 20 or spend a lot of time watching TVLand. From what I've seen most members here are closer 20. This movie satires the Saturday matinee western where you can tell the good guys in the white hats from the bad guys. So it would be better for those of us who saw and liked westerns before the "anti-hero" westerns of the late 60's to present. Where the cowboy star has a new set of duds on for each scene, foils the bad guys and gets the girl but would rather kiss the horse. The storyline is thin because they were all pretty much the same back in the 50's. That's part of the joke. I'd forgotten about this little gem until I was looking at Tom Berenger's credits. He and the rest of the cast were really good. It may not be a great movie but its definitely worth a watch. Favorite line G.W. Bailey saying "Gee Rex, you really ARE a good guy!" 7 out of 10