The Good Shepherd is a nuts-and-bolts ... it's hard to tell if the movie is too long or too slow. Oliver Stone gave JFK, an equally long film that probably looked like a snore-fest on paper ...

The story is told through the perspective of Edward Wilson ( Matt Damon ), who was loosely based on the real ...

We watch his idealism give way to something else: disclosing the nature of that something else is at the heart of this movie's narration as he closes in on the leak.