Okay, so right off the bat I need to make it clear, While I understood the VERY broad elements of what was going on here; this film is SO badly handled and poorly executed that I honestly dont feel like I fully understood what was really going on. Honestly this thing felt like some sort of bizarre mash up of ‘The Warriors’, ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Escape from New York’ had all 3 films been slammed together and produced and directed by your local senior citizens lunch club.
The plot; as far as I can tell; is that at some point in the future sattellite warfare leads. to nuclear warfare which in turn leads to ecological breakdown and the collapse of society, the earth becomes uninhabitable, and so; humanity goes underground (literally) in order to survive.
While down there, over time…religious cults begin to pop up centered around anyone whos charismatic enough to draw a crowd. All of these groups are basically pumping the poor people for ‘donations’ in order to live cushy lifestyles. But the three main organisations have…basically an ordained crime syndicate ensuring their turfs are protected from the other cults influence and that the main three continue to steadily grow.
While there are grunts in this organisation, there are also ‘Shepherds’ basically highly trained assassins who do special missions on behalf of a particular cult that your regular goons arnt able to do.
Its here that we meet Dekota, a Shepherd who’s recently lost his wife and kid, who’s sent on a mission to assassinate a woman from another cult faction thats been causing trouble. However when Dekota gets out there, the woman turns out to have a son…and given that He’s recently lost his family, he cant bring himself to kill off another family, so he takes them hostage.
That’s pretty much the first 15 minutes of the film, and the rest of the movie from there on in, is basically just a long chase sequence occasionally broken up with sex scenes and shoot outs.
There is almost certainly more nuance to be had with this film. But i’ll be damned if I could find it, the broad plot is interesting but WAY too complex. I’d have been happier had it just been ‘it’s the future, 3 cults run the world and our hero has to try and escort a hostage while learning that all the cults are evil’
Instead the film makes out that there are dozens of cults (that we never see) and we spend WAY too long hanging around with characters who dont matter, talking about stuff that isnt relevent and using AWFUL dialogue thats way to flowery and takes a LOT of focus to figure out exactly whats being said.
The tones all over the place, this thing cant decide if it wants to be ‘Total Recall’ futuristic, or ‘Terminator’ futuristic and as such we flip flop between overly animated characters who feel really out of place, and genuinely unpleasent and grim scenarios that totally sour any of the comedy elements.
The pacing is all over the place, we spend WAY too much time stopping and starting with inane conversations that add NOTHING.
theres APPAULING CGI dotted throughout, that makes FMV clips look like 4k remastering.
Im led to believe this was produced by Roger Corman (one of 4 being produced near simultaineously around this time) and I sincerely believe that they basically booked out a warehouse, blew most of the budget on making a bladerunner-esq shanty town set with a few futuristic looking vehicals, and THEN (and only then) did they bother to consider what the script should be about.
Because this thing reads as a rough draft, its got WAY too much stuff going on that should have been on the cutting room floor, the ending is dissatisfying and theres no challenges or twists to this thing, it’s literally ‘They say they’re going to do a thing, they do the thing’. It feels like the cult elements have been too far seperated from the rest of the movie, meaning the whole thing feels like 2 films are going on at once, Dekota protecting the hostage from soldiers sent by the cult…and the whole ‘inner complexities and nuances of the three cults’
Because the two plots dont really interact till the end, and when they do interact it’s pretty meaningless. it means that it feels like neither side is ‘whole’ and neither side really satisfies.
Almost every aspect of this production falls down in my opinion. The script has the above issues, but the direction is rushed, lacks style or confidence, it feels incredibly generic and has a frantic feel to it that feels less coordinated and more just ‘desperately trying to get stuff in the can before we’re kicked off the set’
the cine is WAY too dark, to the point that large swathes of the film are almost unviewable, everythings drown in a turd coloured vasaline smeared smog that renders most of the movie unappealing and icky. and not in a planned way, in a mistranslation from script to screen kind of way.
The edit is poor with WAY too many cuts in a sequence and WAY too much B-roll crammed in there, it feels rushed, unpleasent and incoherent to the point that it makes the scripting even worse, because I could barely tell what was going on based on dialogue and plotting…but with an edit that makes it feel like a third of the film is missing, I have NO idea whats supposed to be happening.
The performances are all sub-par TV Movie quality, very poor deliveries from almost everyone involved (including Rowdy Roddy Piper, which was a real shame) They’re either too animated and incoherent, or not animated enough and feel like this was there first acting gig…well…ever.
The one redeeming thing this film has is it’s score, which does suit the tone of the film just about right. its a tad generic and synthy which makes it feel a little cheap. But it fits and they use it effectively. So small mercies.
Outside of the set work and score, this is a DIRE picture. One that I think, with some friends and a few beers could have the potential to be hilarious. But sober, on a Wednesday night, alone when writing notes for a youtube review. This things insufferable. Avoid.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-shepherd-1998/
