The greatest mystery of 'The Good Shepherd' is how a film with so much potential could go so wrong. Nearly all the ingredients for a decent picture are in obvious abundance here: a terrific cast, excellent acting, great cinematography, fine directing, and subject matter as (seemingly) interesting as the CIA. Yet with all that artistic wealth, it was still fundamentally bankrupt. A flickering contradiction, I watched for the first eighty minutes before the disappointed realization slowly sunk in. It had left out the most essential component to any good film: an effing plot.