The Bad Shepherd (2024) Empty echoes of classics of the past
“Nobody will believe this was an accident”
Watching The Bad Shepherd I immediately had far too many questions than the film could answer (Why is no-one panicking as everyone is an accessory to murder? Why has no-one checked for the transponder within the bag of money — There’s always a tracking device! Why is the bag of cash located so quickly and when it is, why don’t they murder this person too?) Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound or indeed dollar, as there’s a plentiful supply of cash, one rational thinker among three other desperate souls, two dead bodies to be buried already, so why not make it three? Ah we all have questions and some us may have the answers too but not me and not today, and all I saw immediately were echoes of two of the Coen Brothers greatest hits (Fargo and No Country For Old Men) and by the end? Well I’m not sure what I was watching at the end and I only had more questions which is perhaps the hallmark of a great film but sadly The Bad Shepherd isn’t a good or great film though it does have a rather intriguing beginning:
From an overhead shot we track the winding progress of a single car on a seemingly tight, single track road amid dense, rural forest and cutting now inside the car we find a sobbing lady lighting a cigarette as she drives, blood stained bandages wrapped around her hands and what looks like a gunshot wound to her upper torso. Moving throughout the car, director Geo Santini’s camera locates first a gun on the backseat, then a large bag overflowing with money and now outside of the car and in the middle of the road, a piece of wood with a nail protruding upward. Unaware of the obstacle in the middle of the road, the young lady drives over the nail and with an almost instant puncture of her tyre stops the car and slowly exiting the car and checking she is all alone, checks first on the punctured tyre, then the rear boot of the vehicle for a spare and frustrated there isn’t one, slams the boot, opens the rear doors and collects both the gun and the large bag of cash. Clearly in pain, the young lady hobbles awkwardly along the roadside as we cut back inside her stricken car and through the car’s rear view mirror we see a truck approaching and passing the stationary car at high speed before we hear the first words of the film and “WATCH OUT!” as the screen fades to black.
Inside the truck we find four men “John” (Scotty Tovar), Paul (Christos Kalabogias), “Leonard” (Justin Taite) and “Travis” (Brett Zimmerman) all speechless and unable to comprehend what has just happened. Slowly exiting the truck, each man is apprehensive of approaching the young lady and fearing that she’s dead until Paul slowly rolls her over and exclaims “She’s been shot” and “We have to call the cops”. Meanwhile, John has located the bag overflowing with cash on the side of the road and urges Paul not to call the police as Leonard begins to panic as they’re on a public road, a car could drive by any minute and “Whatever we’re gonna do, let’s do it now”. Travis asks Paul if the lady is definitely dead and when he confirms that she is John immediately announces, deadpan, “We give her a proper burial and then split the cash”. A moment’s silence and then Paul, fast becoming the only rational voice of the four men states again that they have to call the police. She has a gun he reasons, as well as a clear gunshot wound, all alone and away from her parked car and nothing in these strange circumstances adds up for him and they must report the incident to the police. Thumbing quickly through the contents of the bag, John estimates there’s $1 Million in cash which split four ways alleviates each man’s debts and way, way beyond their meagre earnings potential. Paul counters quickly and rationally that they know nothing whatsoever of the circumstances surrounding the shooting of the lady, where she has come from or where she was heading to and, more importantly, whose money she was carrying or running away with. John though only has eyes for the money and capitalising on someone else’s misfortune as he counters “We’ve never seen this much money in our lives” and by burying the young lady as soon as possible, there is no possible way to trace either her or the bag of money back to them. As Leonard readily agrees, Paul looks in exasperation in the direction of Travis and “Can you talk sense into these two?”. Although outwardly calm, Travis is panicking as he was the driver at the time and with two DUI’s already on his record he states that he doesn’t want to go to jail or face divorce if they report the incident to the police. We cut to John suggesting they take a vote as Paul immediately counters by saying they have to call the police. John is seen immediately slapping Paul’s phone from his hand but what remains unseen is either the vote or a majority decision as next we see three of the men rolling the dead body onto a large blue tarpaulin and John removing the gun from the body before it’s loaded onto the back of the truck.
Over the brow of the hill can be seen an approaching police car and as John warns Paul to “keep it together”, the police car first stops behind the stricken car, a sheriff exits the police vehicle and checks the inside of the stationary vehicle before returning John’s cheery wave from a distance and then driving and parking beside the truck. Asking the four men to first take their hands out of their pockets and remain calm, the Sheriff now asks the obvious question of why they are standing by the roadside and had they seen a young lady carrying a large bag walking along the road. John replies no on behalf of the group as the Sheriff sarcastically responds “I figured not. That’d be too easy”. With tension now mounting, the Sheriff now asks as to the problem with their “brand new truck” and as the director’s camera cleverly picks out John eyeing the Sheriff with his hand hovering over his handgun, John calmly states the truck had come to a sputtering stop and they were about to try and start the truck again as he approached. Explaining he used to work on old trucks with his father as a child, the Sheriff offers his help to which John instantly thanks him and replies his help isn’t necessary. Travis now jumps into the conversation and “Paul and I fix cars for a living. We got this covered”. Tension still mounting, the Sheriff insists he can help and asking the men to step aside and release the bonnet, John pulls the young lady’s gun from his pocket and aims it directly at the Sheriff. With all three men and the Sheriff all warning John against his actions, John shouts instructions to the Sheriff not to pull his gun and anyway, they have a dead body on the back of the truck and a bag full of cash and “Nobody will believe this was an accident”.
The Sheriff has no alternative but to pull his gun and now aiming it at John, a tension filled Mexican Standoff ensues to warning shouts from both John and the Sheriff, Travis and Leonard, before John shoots the Sheriff through the head. The camera cuts away to the still rotating and turning lights of his police car as Paul sits gently on the bonnet, sobbing. John, speaking for the group once, states calmly and without a shred of emotion that they have to place the Sheriff in his car, wipe the dashcam footage, drive the car off the road and into the woods before burying the young lady as they previously planned and simply divide up the booty inside the bag of cash and “We could spend the rest of our lives and never talk again. But I’m not walking away from that money”. Leonard, loosely speaking on behalf of the group now but also for himself “It’s too late to back out now. Let’s do it, and get it over with”.
I both enjoyed and indeed endured large parts of The Bad Shepherd whilst appreciating Ryan Gordon’s musical soundtrack and especially the cinematography from Hugo Bordes. From a total cast list of just ten, only one further character is worthy of note and played, and played exceptionally well, by the director himself, but the film he helmed promises much before delivering a befuddling mess of very little.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon