THE SKINNY ABOUT SHADOWS AND LIES:
William Vincent (played by James Franco) leads a life that was meant to end but what he does with this life is not what would be expected. With his new name, identity, and life, William takes up residence in New York where he can live in any way that he sees fit, which is to be mysterious and somewhat mean. After some time doing some pick pocketing William finds himself getting an offer from a local gangster Boss (played by Josh Lucas). As a thank you and a gift the Boss has William introduced to Ann (played by Julianne Nicholson) who is the main call girl for the Boss. Though what starts off as just a introduction turns into something more, so much more that William is told to leave town or die. But being a criminal that don’t care and one in love, William comes back to the city to get Ann out of the employment of the Boss.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS COMES MY THOUGHTS:
‘Shadows and Lies’ has a decent plot idea but it has a horrible execution of it. It’s a story that involves a man who is a bad guy, though one that’s not evil just one who seems to just not care, and who is also shrouded in mystery who has fallen in love with a woman he can’t have. Making matters worse is the gangster boss that wants William (the main character) to work for him is also infatuated with the same woman that William is in love with. When the boss finds out about the two he sends William away but love can’t keep him away for too long.
Now nothing new with the story here, though still one that can be interesting. There’s mystery with who this main character is, there’s a evil side to him that makes him interesting, a love interest with a woman that seems not to happy with her life, and a gangster boss controlling them all. How can this go wrong? By having no dialog in this movie that’s how. By having a movie that seems like I’ve been watching it for an hour when it was only 12 minutes is how. By having a character that just seems to wonder around doing nothing is another way. Also by having characters that are not fleshed out enough to make them interesting to watch while being so boring that I don’t feel any connection to them.

Though this movie has potential it just wasn’t brought out. James Franco can be a good actor though in ‘Shadows and Lies’ it seems like all he was told to do was walk around trying to look all cool, tough, and mysterious. There’s not much dialog for James Franco’s character nor any of the other characters. For whatever reason the writer/director Jay Anania produced a film that has about 30 minutes worth of dialog that tries to go somewhere but goes nowhere.
The best thing this movie has going for it is that it’s done on Blu Ray and that it’s got some pretty good cinematography. However, having a movie that looks good on the television as well as having good angles on how the viewer is seeing the scene does not make up for the lack of substance in the plot, no acting, and characters that just toil along without anything being accomplished. I was impressed with how ‘Shadows and Lies’ looked because of the Blu Ray quality as well as the aspects being seen through the camera angles but nothing else about this movie was good. Before the movie was even half finished I was already loosing any interest that I had, which was very little by this point, and by the end I was just happy that it was over, even with the ending that it has, just having an ending was good enough.