Joe Pesci, the man who redefined the beat-down and once tried to rob poor little Macaulay Culkin, came out of an eight-year retirement for this? For the role of an unidentified mob boss, with under two minutes of screen time, serving no purpose but to prolong an already terrible film – and he doesn’t even kill anybody? The worst part is, Pesci’s actually the only thing “”The Good Shepherd”” has going for it.

Come on, Joe, we know your old buddy Bobby De Niro really loved the script and you couldn’t help but go along, but maybe next time you should sit down and maybe even read the thing. Were the rest of your scenes left on the cutting room floor? I hope it was worth it, because you may have just marked the death of a legacy of creative torture and whiny, hotheaded thugs. Next time you visit, please have a little more to do with the storyline, and please – have mercy – please put someone’s head in some kind of vice.