MovieChat Forums > The Good Shepherd (2007) Discussion > Second murder needs explaining.

Second murder needs explaining.

posted 18 years ago by RitchCS
6 replies | jump to latest

How did the murderer, not being a lawyer, or a policeman, get into the second victim's jail cell, murder him, tie him up to a noose to make it look like a suicide, and then leave without being noticed? There's no way in hell that could have happened. The victim in the cell was being guarded closely. I can't believe that the screenwriter with so many good credits could let this go without a rewrite. Couldn't Christian Slater, Stephen Rea, Molly Parker, or even the director come up with some plausible explanation. They were all guilty of a crime and should refund any admission or rental charges given up by an audience member.

[–] filmreaver 18 years ago

I think the murderer was a lawyer, he is referred to as a general counsel once in the film and is the business lawyer, thats why he hangs out around the cardinal's office and has a connection to slater's character.

[–] RitchCS 18 years ago

That still doesn't access his being able to get into the guarded jail cell, kill the second victim, string him up like a suicide, leaving the cell without being seen by a guard who HAD to use a key to let the lawyer in and out of the cell. I am still baffled. So was the cast and director, apparently...since no one bothered to explain how it could have happened. All we hear from the lawyer is, "I've killed three people." He should have killed the screenwriter too. That would've been four.

[–] TreeHuggerKyle 18 years ago

I was just about to post the same question, then I saw someone had already posted it. Looks like nobody else has an answer to this one yet. I think reaver is right, Henry was a lawyer, so as such maybe he had some connections in prison, either inmates or guards. That's the only guess I have so far, hopefully somebody else has something better, mine's really a stretch.

[–] CathyE 17 years ago

You know why this never gets answered? Because this is a terrible movie! You can drive a truck through that plot hole! In fact, anything to do with police work here was laughable.

Even how the film begins - why does the priest run away when he hears someone coming? That made no sense for his character. He would have stayed put, continued to give last rites, and told the lady to call the police.

And Christian Slater - I didn't buy him as a priest for a second! I mean, right off the bat, he wants the other priest to break confession. And how about when he's taken over the priest's church after he dies, and he's in his room and thinks he hears an intruder. The first thing he does is grab a weapon. Was he really going to go bash the intruder over the head? A priest wouldn't do that. He'd call out "who's there?". Or at the very least go right to the phone and call the police.

And don't even get me started on that silly soap opera ending!

I'm thinking Molly Parker, Gordon Pinsent, and Stephen Rea must have all really needed a pay cheque to agree to this terrible film.

“I always tell the truth…even when I lie” - Scarface

[–] the_zookeeper 16 years ago

Cathy, I'm not so sure that a priest wouldn't grab a weapon. I went to a Catholic high school. We had some characters for priests to educate us, and with the exception of one of them (spineless little dweeb who used to get off on teasing us), I loved them.

One of our priests could be seen outside on hot days in nothing but red shorts playing Jimi Hendrix on his guitar. He was a 250 pound Irish guy who was whiter than a KKK sheet. It was a sight; he looked like a beached whale wearing a ukulele. One of the others was about as ass kicker in class. Talk about a temper! That guy? Yeah, I could see him bashing the crap out of an intruder. One of the others used to come to the basketball games absolutely faced. He would reek of heavy liquor, and he'd be laughing too loud, pushing those crazy-large eyeglasses back up to the bridge of his nose. All in all, few - if any - of them acted like "normal priests".

The gene pool could use a little chlorine......

[–] varmitydog 13 years ago

One plausible explanation for this would be that he paid one of the prisoners in the cell block to kill him. It would be easy enough to do, give money to the prisoner's family in exchange for the murder. Or he could have bribed one of the guards to do the same thing, although that seems implausible.