The Good Shepherd Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
The truth will test his faith to the limit.
CHRISTIAN SLATER plays a worldly and urbane priest who is forced to challenge his comfortable existence as an ecclesiastical spin-doctor when he comes to believe in the innocence of a young priest accused of murder. His only ally, a journalist, is also his former sweetheart...
| Christian Slater | Daniel Clemens |
| Molly Parker | Madeline Finney |
| Stephen Rea | McCaran |
| Gordon Pinsent | Cardinal Ledesna |
| Nancy Beatty | Lucy Gallagher |
| Von Flores | Father Andrews |
| Daniel Kash | Jeffrey Altman |
| Alex Paxton | Monica |
| Jordan Hughes | Cameron |
| Roman Podhora | Detective Sherman |
| Shawn Lawrence | Bishop Sorano |
| Colin Glazer | Monsignor Hummel |
| Joan Gregson | Mrs. Donelly |
| Kyra Harper | Mrs. Andrews |
| Duane Murray | James |
| Lewin Webb |
5.00 out of 10 (298 votes)
Visitor Reviews
It's now called, 'The Confessor' on DVD
posted on 07 Feb 2009Was the cast and crew on drugs before they started filming this? There was a hole in the plot...so big...nothing could have filled it up. From the first scene when the co-star is late for dinner, was there any doubt where he was and what he had just done? The suspense was over from there. Now, it was going to take another 85 minutes before the mystery was solved. I must confess that the biggest hole in the plot kept me awake for hours, wondering how dumb the screenwriter, the director, Chrisian Slater, Molly Parker, and Stephen Rea could be not to at least explain how our murderer, who was not a lawyer, or a policeman, could go into a locked cell at a jail, kill his second victim, and tie him up from a noose to make it look like suicide??? I kept wondering if I had fallen asleep out of sheer boredom and missed how that happened. If someone can explain it to me, please do...and then, why, for God's sake, did he kill the third victim? Nothing made sense...and yet, someone thought this film was worthy to be an official selection at a film festival. Perhaps it was a comedy and I failed to laugh.
Overcooked shepherd's pie
posted on 08 Jul 2008For 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"!-
Nice try, but not even a good B movie
posted on 24 Jun 2008Webb's film concerning a priest (Slater) who believes in a young priest who is accused of murder and claims he is innocent. Molly Parker is good as his former love interest/journalist who helps him out. The film is not amazing, it was actually quite lame in some of its cinematic moments, and felt so B-movie-ish. It was entertaining at times, but just too slow and didn't have the directorial flare that a good B movie should have or the quality of an A-movie. This was nowhere near as good as stuff like The Deal (also starring Slater) or even End Game (starring Cuba GOoding Jr.)... the best in this kind of genre is THe Sentinel which was a very good film despite it having a TV-movie like feel to it. THe Confessor is not the worst film, but its a bit worse than your average film so skip it unless you have a lot of time on your hands. IMDb Rating: 5.0, my rating: 6/10
Father forgive me for I have sinned. I've killed three persons since my last confession!
posted on 15 Aug 2007(There are Spoilers) When the very beloved and respected Father Andrews,Von Flores, is found by Mrs. Lucy Gallagher (Nancy Betty), his church's landlady, at the scene of young Eric Halloran,James Dallas Smith,murder he instead of asking for a lawyer asks for his fellow priest Father Daniel Clemens, Christian Slater,to talk,or confess,to.Adamantly denying any guilt in Eric's death Father Andrews still won't tell Father Daniel the possible reasons behind Eric's murder! It seems that Father Andrews has a strong suspicion who killed Eric but can't reveal it either to the police or Father Daniel. The killer confessed his about to commit crime to Father Andrews during confession!Believing Father Andrews story Father Daniel goes so far as getting his former girlfriend, before he joined the priesthood, WPPI TV news reporter Madelline Finney, Molly Parker, to interview, in jail, Father Andrew and see what she can get out of him. It turns out, Finney finds out, that Eric was a street hustler who was shaking down his customers for cash and that possibly Father Andrews was one of them! It gets even more interesting when Father Daniel checking Father Andrews mail finds that he was in contact with the gay Catholic group called "Equality"! If this became public to his superiors in the church that would have had Father Andrews defrocked and booted out of his parish St. Dominic.As things start to tighten around the besieged Father Andrew's neck he's suddenly found hanged in the prison shower! This sets off alarms with Father Daniel in that it's very obvious to him that Father Andrews didn't kill himself. A strongly religious man like Father Andrews who was willing to spend the rest of his life behind bars by not breaking the church's voes of confession will never kill himself, a mortal sin, and be damned for all eternity!The movie has Father Daniel as well as reporter Finney uncover a number of clues to just what was the relationship between the two deceased Father Andrews and Eric Halloran. Like Father Daniel suspected someone whom Father Andrews took into his confidence,during confession, murdered Eric in that he was blackmailing him.Despite keeping quite Father Andrews was himself murdered by Eric's killer in fear that he may break under the pressure of police interrogation and spill the beans on him as well! The church wanting to keep the whole murderous affair behind it had Father Daniel kicked out for his bulldog-like insubordination in his trying to find Father Andrews killer. Since he refused to play along with the theory that it all was an affair between two men that, when exposed, went terribly wrong!It's then that the movie starts to backtrack in a number of clues that both the police and Father Daniel overlooked.***SPOILERS*** These clues point directly to Mrs. Gallagher who rented the parish to the church that Father Andrews was the pastor of! It was Mrs. Gallagher's un-Catholic like ways of doing business with the people, mostly teenagers runaways and drug addicts, of the St. Dominic Parish that eventually set the stage not only for the murder of Eric Hallaron and Father Andrews but herself as well!Somewhat predictable ending with the killer suddenly coming out of the shadows as his identity, which was not that much of a surprise, was about to be exposed. One thing you have to say in the killers favor is that he unwittingly prevented Father Daniel from betraying the late Father Andrews in him breaking his voes of confession. Even though at the time Father Andrews had absolutely no idea that he was breaking them!
Entertaining Film
posted on 15 Aug 2007This film deals with a priest by the name of Daniel Clemens, (Chistian Slater) who is not very well equipped to be a parish priest and is more like a financial business man who can raise funds for the church and deals only with the higher ups in the church. There is a murder and a priest is involved and he is accused of the crime, Daniel is summoned to help this priest out and find out exactly what went on with this murdered man, who was considered a whore. There are many deep dark secrets that are uncovered as Daniel plays the role as a detective. Daniel even gets the help from his former girl friend, Madeline Finney, (Molly Parker) who is a journalist and works at a TV station. Daniel has to stay over night a Madeline's apartment and he accidentally sees her nude taking a shower. There are all kinds of situations concerning dope and plenty of murders and it is not easy to try and figure out just who is doing all these killings.
in the name of the father, the son, and Christian Slater
posted on 22 Jul 2007Christian Slater plays a priest who has taken over Father dowling in this uninvolved thriller about another priest who has been arrested for the murder of a young man.slater becomes suspicious when the priest will not confess to the murder, but wants to see him and tells him nothing instead. stranger things happen, including a women recording other children's confessions and the rest of the movie sees Slater looking either concerned or perplexed. or both.but the trouble with this film is Stephen Rea. any person who watches a movie with him in a supporting role (that isn't set in the UK) should know that he will be the villain come the end. so the film lacked any suspense for me, as his presence just ruined it for me. but he is good in his role, i just wish he would opt for a good guy role once in a while.this is pure TV movie of the week stuff, Slater is woefully miscast as the lead as he still has that little twinkle in his eyes that made him so likable in Kuffs and Mobsters......15 years ago.
Heart pounding and suspenseful
posted on 21 Sep 2006I'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.
Some more research would have been nice ..
posted on 31 Aug 2005The 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.
A lazy-afternoon-nothing-else-to-watch type of film
posted on 06 Jun 2005I 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.
'B' stands for boring.
posted on 11 Feb 2009The story is shortly about the faith-lacking business man priest, Daniel Clemens (Christian Slater), who is looking closer on a case where another priest is suspected for murder. The priest denies he's guilty but at the same time he is not able to discuss the matter due to confidentiality. Enter Daniel Clemens who starts playing cop...While the plot isn't ridiculous, everything else is. Let's start with the visual side, the cinematography is dull, it looks more like a TV-series than a movie. The camera angles are boring, in fact, there's not a single memorable camera angle in the entire movie. There's no interesting closeups revealing details. And the scene transitions, well, there's not much to say about those, they aren't smooth at all, there seems to be no connection between the scenes than the actual plot. Okay, they did use a transition with music in between two scenes, but there are no interesting visual transitions in the entire movie, the times dissolve was used there was no visual connection between the scenes.The boring visual part could be forgiven if the film would offer anything else. Unfortunately the film only offers forced wooden acting and clumsy dialogue with no punch. On top of that the film suffers from audio problems, the sound volume is lowered several times in the movie as if the microphones would be too far.I didn't predict the solution of the film. It could be because the film never gave me the opportunity or it could be due to the presentation, which was so boring I never even tried to figure it out.Put two plus two together and it equals a B-movie where 'B' stands for boring.