Chicago Sun-Times
Jim Emerson |
5 |
If you think George Tenet's Central Intelligence Agency was a disaster, wait until you see Robert De Niro's torpid, ineffectual movie... |
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips |
6 |
...takes a while to get through its expositional thickets and over its case of flashback hiccups. Then it gets interesting. |
E!
Alex Markerson |
9 |
The Good Shepherd's dense, sometimes muddled story isn't what gives the film its impact--it's Damon... |
filmcritic.com
Chris Barsanti |
8 |
...a pleasingly complex espionage epic... |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick |
5 |
...an ambitious and starry but lamentably interminable attempt to trace the beginnings of the Central Intelligence Agency... |
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh |
7 |
...an icy drama... |
Reel
Tim Knight |
7 |
...sweeping and richly entertaining... |
Slant Magazine
Ed Gonzalez |
4 |
This is featherweight entertainment, sans visual elation and moral consequence--like Munich for Beginners. |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers |
6 |
Shepherd wants to say something profound about the effect of a deceitful government on human values. But it's tough to slog through a movie that has no pulse. |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum |
7 |
...so methodical, so glum, and so unemotional... |
New York Times
Manohla Dargis |
5 |
...can only elude and insinuate, not enlighten and inform. |
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor |
4 |
Clocking in at nearly three slow, sincere and fitfully bamboozling hours, The Good Shepherd has the stretched-out feel of a movie made to shore up the legacy of a man on the downhill slope of a brilliant acting career. |
Village Voice
Robert Wilonsky |
4 |
...a loooong, sloooow look at the history of the CIA. |
Onion AV Club
Keith Phipps |
5 |
...what ought to be big twists arrive with a resounding "duh." |
Maxim
Pete Hammond |
8 |
...a rich, complex and galvanizing look at the CIA that belongs to the hallowed, almost lost filmmaking tradition of legendary films like The Godfather. |
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer |
7 |
The long gestation period was fortunate in one sense: A movie about the genesis of a CIA operative certainly is timely. But with all the news in the air about wartime covert operatives, I expected something more depth-charged than this freeze-dried spymaster dossier. |
This movie is available on DVD/Video