Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie Review

Also known as "huh?"

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 3, 2011

You're a secretive one.

Shadows and Lies is an apt title for this film considering that nothing beyond the basics of the plot make any sense. Director Jay Anania's movie strives to be some kind of artsy avant-garde sort of experience, but it ends up as little more than a structurally confused and thematically hollow endeavor that's a whole lot of nothing outside of its paper-thin unoriginal plot. Whatever Anania's intentions may have been, Shadows and Lies falters in most every scene, whether those that are impenetrably dark or grossly over-processed, whether during times of wayward character inner contemplation or choppy and forced dialogue. Still, it always seems as if the film is on the brink of putting all its pieces together, but alas, viewers are left with more questions than answers and more style than substance as characters are left mostly underdeveloped and the picture's multitude of visual styles seem for naught. It's a nice effort at putting together something out of the typical mainstream repetitions that infest multiplexes these days, but there's just not enough heft or meaning, either readily evident or clandestine, to pull the film into the upper echelon of critically-lauded art house fare where it seems so desperately to want to be.

It's...a door!

A man who goes by the name of William Vincent (James Franco) has returned to New York City after four years of self-imposed exile. His story unfolds as he looks back on what drove him away. He'd always been a lonely man, but a man with many skills who catches the eye of a local crime boss (Josh Lucas). William hesitatingly accepts an offer to work for the Boos as a middle man, delivering underground goods and collecting payments from those who owe the Boss money. He's looked after by the Boss's right-hand man, Victor (Martin Donovan), but the person William becomes interested in is Ann (Julianne Nicholson), a woman whose job requires her to serve only as the Boss's beck-and-call girl. The two develop feelings for one another, but can William guarantee his and Ann's safety and escape from the Boss, or will his developing relationship with the girl cost him dearly in the end?

Shadows and Lies is a lingerer, a loiterer, a movie that likes to inconsequentially stare and gaze off into space, all the while probably wondering where it all went wrong and pondering what it might have been like at the top of the film nerd heap rather than at the bottom of the pile of movies of missed opportunity. Then again, was there ever really even a fundamental structure strong enough to carry this movie to any great heights? Not really. Despite a good cast, Shadows and Lies suffocates on its own aspirations. It's too haughty, too sure of itself, so certain that it's done everything right -- like it's casted the perfect shadows, painted with just the right colors, been built on unquestionable tones, grounded in critically important themes -- when in reality none of it gels. Whatever pieces are in place are just that, slices of something that maybe in another film or in different hands might have been something of value, but as they are here the film feels like randomly-assembled cuts and edits that are in some way always off the mark. There's no flow, and about the only thing that works in the movie is the basic storyline. The supporting elements are messy, unkempt, uncertain. It's a mess of a movie, one that probably could have been something more but that just never came together as it should have.

What the film does do well, at least in part, is to paint its lead character as a deeply troubled, uncertain, even haunted man. Of course it fails to truly delve into the nitty-gritty details, but James Franco does a fine job given the script's limitations and the picture's overwhelmingly faux-stylized look and feel to portray a man's who's hurt and uncertain about who he is, what he does, and what he wants. Unfortunately, he seems like just a random anomaly in a movie that's too structurally unsound to get any real point across. Whatever themes, greater purpose, or philosophical underpinnings there are or should have been are practically invisible, either lost in the film's murkiness or not there at all; "shadows and lies" indeed. Still, Franco is a light through it all; it's not even clear that he understands what he's doing in the movie, but the effort is there and the portrayal is strong if the goal is to demonstrate a collection of negative and uneven elements for some greater whole that never materializes.

Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shadows and Lies arrives on Blu-ray with a wildly uneven 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. It's all over the place, seemingly by design, but the end result simply doesn't look very good on Blu-ray. Although there's some very tight and pleasing details -- primarily seen on paved streets and building façades around New York -- the image is also just as often flat and lifeless. Skin textures, too, are sometimes intricate, sometimes nonexistent, with some shots appearing incredibly messy and defined by sloppy color gradations and poor shadow details that are so bad that the image practically falls apart. Colors are fair, sometimes strong and sometimes washed out, but black crush is readily evident throughout. Background banding runs rampant as well. The film's look is all over the map; it's natural here, overcooked there, and occasionally under-processed. Like the movie at large, there's really no rhyme or reason as to why it's so uneven, but the end result is generally an unattractive transfer.

Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shadows and Lies features a crunchy Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack. This track is often harsh, unlistenable, even, at a few junctures where it's incredibly sharp and undefined. Dialogue, too, suffers through a few instances of sounding excessively sharp and unnatural, though to the track's credit the spoken word remains firmly grounded in the center channel. Even the occasional sound effect plays as somewhat chunky, such as heavy footsteps in a hallway. At the same time, scattered background ambience can be quite inviting and realistic, whether exterior city din or background noise as heard inside a restaurant. The track isn't terrible by any means, but it seems to fall apart and come back together with some regularity.

Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Shadows and Lies contains only previews for other Millennium Entertainment releases.

Shadows and Lies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Unfinished, uncertain, uneven, and wavering: all describe Shadows and Lies. When a movie is this off-center and gives off such a feeling of incompleteness, it's difficult to say much more about it. It certainly aspires to be more than it is, but for a myriad of reasons both obvious and not so obvious, it fails to achieve whatever goals Director Jay Anania had in mind for the movie. James Franco's performance is a bright spot, but given the lack of true character development, even that's something of a stretch. Maybe best to say of Shadows and Lies that it's a tease, a movie that seems to promise something of value, a movie that seems ready to explode into some sort of relevant payoff that never comes. Still, it's an interesting case study in flawed filmmaking. Millennium entertainment's Blu-ray release features an uneven 1080p image that seems more a result of filmmaker intent than a problem with the transfer. The soundtrack is faulty, too, and the supplements are zero. Skip it.