'SHADOWS & LIES': Two Stars (Out of Five)
James Franco stars in this unbelievably slow and uneventful artsy indie film about a man trying to free the woman he thinks he loves from a New York City organized crime syndicate. It's written and directed by Jay Anania who was one of Franco's teachers at New York University. The film also features Josh Lucas, Martin Donovan and Julianne Nicholson. It's the perfect example of too much style over substance.
In the movie Franco plays a small time crook named William Vincent who picks people's pockets and often throws it away. He draws the attention of a local New York City drug runner (Lucas) who is impressed by his skills and apparent lack of humanity. He offers William a job and then a night with his woman, Ann (Julianne Nicholson). William falls for Ann, even though he knows nothing about her, and this of course causes complications with his new employer.
The movie is extremely slow paced and very moody. There's very little dialogue and the film is instead content with just giving the viewer long camera shots of the actor's blank faces (mostly Franco). If you're a big fan of Franco and into his looks this might be enough for you but most others will be extremely bored. The directing is kind of cool, the cinematography is beautiful and the music striking but the screenplay is so poorly written. Nothing much ever happens, we learn almost nothing about any of the characters and as a result the film seems very pointless. It starts promising, it's beautiful to look at and it's nice to see Franco taking some different projects but he's not given anything really to work with here. The movie is almost a total waste of time with nothing to offer anyone except some nice photography and some long mug shots for die-hard fans of prettyboy Franco.
Watch our review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nse6Wm1EtZU
