She's Just a Shadow

Honestly, a lot, and I mean a LOT of nudity and drugs. It basically tells the story of a group of friends dealing with street life, as the party, and party but the effects lead them to descend into darkness, sadness and madness. This can be often complicated to show as people break in different ways. This film did a good job of showing it. It can be confusing but it is worth a watch.

The story is a blend of traditional underground crime thriller exploration of sub-culture and more experimental risque imagery circling tropes such as sexploitation and torture porn. There is heavy influences that permeate the film, most notably Tarantino and Stahelski. The synopsis and my initial description make "She's Just A Shadow" seem like a very exciting film. And given the cinematography and set design for a lot of the scenes, this movie has some cool moments. But...there are several flaws here.

First off, the story moves so freely that there is a feeling of "lack of cohesion" that makes it hard for any of the major plot points to sink in. The foundation starts to feel weak. It is a gritty and interesting story, and the setting and subject matter are pulp fiction candy tropes. Unfortunately there seemed to be more focus creating moments of extreme sensationalized tableauxs, than creating solid story continuity. Again, there is some really cool stuff happening in "She's Just A Shadow", unfortunately it all seems disjointed and more fitting to music videos and short film, arthouse pieces.

The acting is tight, the cast do a good job bring life to these characters, there just isn't enough written here for them to go on. Most of the characters are two-dimensional, weakly written "shadows". So much so that inorder to give them substance you really need to grab on to the film's title, and near hallucinatory asthetics and hold on for dear life. Something that helps equally with watching this one is the celebratory over-the-top display of violence and gore. There is plenty of blood flowing in "She's Just A Shadow". I just don't know if there's enough going on here to satisfy most film fans.

Often times a movie is bad and that is the end of it. I have never seen a movie that is so compelling aesthetically, yet so vapid plot wise.

Every character is, for the most part, a terrible person. Some just happen to be out protagonists. Women are naked throughout the entirety of the film, to the extend that you become entirely desensitized to it by the half hour mark. In fact it was far more intriguing as to why characters wore close at all.

The film is icky, disturbing and gross. Bloody but not violent. Lots of nudity but no sex. The world is bleak, but since everyone we meet sucks it's hard to feel that bad for them. There's no grounding point. Technically, the script isn't terrible, at least minute to minute. Beat to beat however, it becomes clear the movie's overall focus it it's edgy set pieces and its dark aesthetics because the plot is not even boilerplate.

It's an interesting idea, premise wise and aesthetically. Decent in small doses. Terrible as a movie.

A bunch of hookers and petty crooks snort mountains of coke and party constantly. The casting folks rounded up a slew of babes and dressed them as scantily as possible (or less) for most of the running time. Some got lines of dialog; most settled for lines of blow. There's enough eye candy to induce diabetic coma. All are herded onto several florid sets for a stupid script that barely justifies a bunch of gory interludes with heavy, often gruesome, casualties among the aforementioned and their rivals. Then, for icing on the perversity cake, they toss in a serial killer with an over-the-top signature style for reducing the female portion of the city's next census.

The plot falls apart long before the credits roll, taking down whatever empathy one might have felt for some of the characters along the way. Few, if any, will care who lives, dies or thrives by the end.

But those seeking the cheap voyeuristic kicks from films like Caligula could feel they've landed in hog heaven wallowing through this thing. Fans of loinscaping (If that isn't already a real word, it should be) will enjoy a generous array of configurations flashing on their screens throughout. The 5 rating is because this will be a 1 for some and a 10 for others. Pick your own adjectives for those on either side of the taste coin. I'd just say the package serves more tails than heads.

This is what happens when you grow up in Tromaville and become a filmmaker. Imagine starting with Ichi the Killer and mixing in Scarface, Spun, Showgirls, and Summer of Sam while reading 50 Shades of Grey and you should be able to smell how this movie is. To say that this won't appeal to everybody is an understatement, but that has never determined whether a film is worth seeing. Despite the amount of time spent on scenes consisting mainly of nudity and drug use there is a story that unwinds as you go with a lump sum delivery in the last 10 minutes. Production value overall is good and the players skilled enough to deliver their dialogue naturally with the correct posture. If you are at all on the fence I would say give it a watch, you were curious enough to read this review so don't stop short here.