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The Good Shepherd (Full Screen Edition)
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List Price: $12.98
Special Price: $11.49
Your Savings: $ 1.49 ( 11% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro, Keir Dullea, Michael Gambon
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Universal
EAN: 0025192867224
Format: AC-3
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2007-04-03
Running Time: 168
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 2006-12-22
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Editorial Reviews:
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Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie and Robert De Niro star in this powerful thriller about the birth of the CIA. Edward Wilson (Damon) believes in America, and will sacrifice everything he loves to protect it. But as one of the covert founders of the CIA, Edward's youthful idealism is slowly eroded by his growing suspicion of the people around him. Everybody has secrets…but will Edward's destroy him? With an all-star cast including Alec Baldwin, Billy Crudup, William Hurt, Timothy Hutton and John Turturro, it's the gripping story David Ansen of Newsweek hails as "spellbinding."
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: COMPLETE CRAP...
Comment: I went into this film with great expectations, considering the cast. The film crashed and burned with in the 1st three seconds! Everyone I was watching it with (party of 12) fell asleep at some point. Now I know that you may suggest that it may have been only interesting for certain audiences, but we are all avid fans of SPY films and we all know great knowledge of the World Wars, so clearly they did something wrong! Robert De Niro's debut directing effort sucked! He needs to stick to acting. I heard he will be directing 2 sequels for the film, all i can say is...don't WASTE YOUR TIME! You will crash and burn in hollywood, once again buddy! So yes, don't waste your money/three hours of your life you could spend with family and friends on this poor poor attempt at entertainment. You could however, check out a better film like the Dark Knight or listen to a Leona Lewis CD. Good luck in all your endeavors, Robert, but please don't make any more films, because frankly they are abominations and atrocious reels of film! Peace, Love and Happiness to all! <3 Mrs. Priestly
Customer Rating:
Summary: the company man
Comment: The main character is a tool and I don't like him and I don't like his terrible life but that's not why I didn't care too much for this film (of course). It's entirely possible to do a movie about an unlikable and even bland character that makes him interesting and sympathetic. In this character study the creation of an even mildly compelling character whose life we take any real interest in was simply not accomplished. This isn't to say Matt Damon did not act well because he seems to have turned in a decent, understated performace that was befitting of the role. The fact that this is a story about a strange man whose life is his work that is also the story of the birth of the CIA lumps it together with a whole slew of movies that affect for the worse my reaction to this espionage, cold war spy drama. Seems like it could have been a lot more engaging to me, and no I don't mean more action. THE GOOD SHEPHERD is an odd film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good, if dry movie -- but is there a commentary track or features?
Comment: This was an engrossing, if dry, film for those who like Le Carre novels and the Alec Guiness-starred movies based on them. But it's not clear from either the product description or the reviews if a) there's any director or actor commentaries on the film; b) any making-of featurettes; or c) any documenatries about the real CIA or historical figures, such as James Angleton, upon whom the movie is based.
Since there's no mention of any of that in the product description, I assume there's no commentary track or other features. Is that correct?
Customer Rating:
Summary: A little difficult to follow, but accurate?
Comment: First, a comment of commendation: Matt Damon played the lead role in this film. He was so low key, he almost reminded me of Billy Bob Thornton in "The Man Who Wasn't There," i.e., so different from a role I would expect of him was to border on the uncanny.
Now, commenting on my "title." I usually don't do all that well with films that start at one historic point, then bring you thirty years before, then sixty years after...and on and on. You get the picture? This film did that quite a bit. It went from Edward Wilson's (Damon's) role as a student at Yale, and his induction into Skull and Bones, then to during WWII, then back gto Wilson's childhood when Edward witnessed his father's suicide, then... (The only "adhesive" in the film was the suicide note that his father had left. It came up during a discussion in the film in which Edward stated that he hadn't read it, then later in the film, when Edward, much later in his life, actually did.)
I saw the point of that format in the film but it can be a little disconcerting, a little hard to follow.
Now, one trait of the film that appealed to me was that when I was in Ireland in early 2007, the film had just arrived there and was showing a lot of popularity in Ireland. Remember that the CIA isn't a terribly popular organization, both because of its indiscretions and myths associated with it, not to mention, I suspect, crimes for which it has been blamed while other US organizations, perhaps the Defense Dept., the Homeland Security people, or others may be more responsible for it. But it has always intrigued me how popular anti-CIA (or anti-secret in general) stories can be around the world.
It was never clear to me whether the film was supposed to be a docudrama, a work of complete fiction, or a pseudo-docudrama. I got the impression that it's supposed to be the third of those, i.e., a predominantly fictional demonstration of how the agency came about, from well-connected elites with little feel for how the rest of us feel. If that's the case, the film succeeded. Again, many of the agency bigwigs at least in the film were Yalies, had connection in the UK with graduates of Cambridge, all of them arrogant, cynical, and unable to trust even each other.
And Damon was so low key that even his wife, portrayed as the sister of another Bonesman whom Damon got pregnant early in the film, complained to him that she didn't even know what he did.
Part of the film's confusion too came about because of an affair Damon had early in the film, and that which another character was "having," and Damon was investigating. (I won't give away any details of that investigation lest I give away more than you should know before you see the film!) While I've seen the film twice so far, I got those two affairs a little mixed up.
There was the interaction between Soviet agents and those of the US, the
CIA's alleged use of lysergic acid to lose one of their potential assests--much of this stuff documented as among the agency's ill-advised tactics.
The film overall has an interesting story, keeps you on the edge of your seat quite effectively. The characters and themes can be confusing, but they do, alas, drive you to want to watch it again. And its accuracy or not could be enough to keep discussion groups occupied for a long time.
It's pretty long, though. If you have anyone with a short attention span, recommend something else. There is tension, enough to keep you watching. The acting was I thought excellent. (DeNiro does show up a few times, but he doesn't use it as a medium to show off his face.) Alec Baldwin is an FBI agent who also serves as a bit of an adhesive through the script. And I won't tell you the content of the suidice note--not released until near the film's end--of you'll have someone put out a contract on me, and I won't blame you.
Enjoy it, though, and let it encourage your reading more about the "intelligence apparatus" and its indiscretions, as well as its alleged successes and failures.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An exceptional movie
Comment: I honestly do not understand why so many people have given this excellent movie such mediocre reviews. I can only imagine that in this dumbed-down age of limited attention spans, anything that challenges the intellect is regarded as 'uncool'. Some reviewers say that the characters are under-developed, while others say that De Niro has taken on too much. This is utter nonsense. The movie is superb, the casting is superb, the acting is superb, and the story is superb. It is, in other words, a masterpiece.
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