The Good Shepherd (2004)

Blistering performances.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

For a non-Canadian viewer,the film might seem weird .Their priests do not look like those of their countries,or maybe this is the movie which makes them look like more like yuppies than men of God.It takes a lot of imagination to believe that Christian Slater,Stephen Rea and even poor Von Flores are clergymen.The movie is actually a whodunit where Slater -who began his career in a monastery (remember "the name of the rose"?)puts on his little act of Hercule Poirot without a mustache .Best performance ,IMHO,comes from Nancy Beatty as the sinister Mrs Gallagher:she particularly shines in the scene where she blames the clergy for their life in luxury.Like this ...try this.....Primal fear (Gregory Hoblit) -much better than "shepherd"!-

I'm a fan of Christian Slater and was pleasantly surprised to find this movie to be entertaining, fast-moving, and incredibly suspenseful. At the beginning the plot seems boring and contrived, but the great directing, decent acting, and wonderful cinematography brings this movie into "I was very entertained" level. I really liked the London location with the Winter setting, as well as the other on location settings that made the film more authentic. There were some parts that seemed very unbelievable, but it didn't distract from the quality of the film. Also, would of liked to see more romance between Daniel and the reporter, his former lover/girlfriend. Overall great movie to see on a rainy day or weeknight.

The story in itself was quite interesting, but I ran into something that happens too often. So many times when I know more than average about the situation/background of the story of a movie, I see loads of mistakes. Same here. I'm a catholic and found the mistakes regarding a.o. the Mass annoying. It is possible to say 'let us pray' directly after sermon (in week Masses), but then the priest won't continue to the creed, as he did in the movie (and as happens on Sundays and holidays). And the creed is said together, not only by the priest. Later on, things got worse. The priest entered the church, kneeled, and kissed the altar (all of this is indeed what happens in the beginning of Mass) and then ... he stepped away from the altar (huh?) and continued with 'let us pray' and the our father! LOL, he just skipped 2/3rd of the Mass ;-) And also the our father is prayed aloud by the entire congregation. There was much more to comment on, but 'nuf said about this topic: they should have done their research more thoroughly. Asking some catholics, going to Mass a few times themselves, or just looking in Wikipedia would have done the trick.

I agree with much of what has been said about Slater's career as of late and also hope that he returns to making interesting films.This film, however, was not.Spoilers begin: Red herrings were not: Did the priest do it protect his "other" life? Was it the spooky guy at the gay Catholic support group/mass? Was it the abusive head of the children's shelter? Was it the kids from the shelter pulling a "Primal Fear - Ed Norton" twist? It was none of these and it was the most obvious candidate for anyone who has ever watched one of these formulaic thrillers. There are only two "name" actors in the entire film, and one of the two is cast in an unimportant, unassuming role. Hmmmm. Are we supposed to be shocked when it's this actor? In all, the acting was fine, but there was very little character development and almost no tension.Watch it on the weekend, after lunch on a cold day with a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Then promptly forget it.