Review: ‘Shadows' (2022)

In a nod to, what I choose to believe, is the Fast and Furious franchise, Rossi ties a somewhat intricate crime thriller together on the basis of family. It could have easily gotten very cheesy but fortunately there’s a greater level of self-awareness h

★★★

NR - Crime, Drama (101 mins)

dir. Michael Matteo Rossi

“A young low-level drug dealer is reunited with his estranged mom and uncle to protect him when a ruthless drug kingpin puts a hit on him.”

— Official Synopsis

What can I say? After a couple months of sitting on a screener for Michael Matteo Rossi’s latest feature, Shadows, I’m kicking myself I didn’t press play sooner. It’s an eclectic blend of varying crime thrillers, family dramas, and unrelenting action. Better yet, it’s one of the stronger attempts I’ve seen recently by an independent crew at making something that is fully realized with a singular vision in any genre. There is real intention behind Rossi’s framing in most scenes that lends to helping tell the story effectively. Despite some hiccups in the editing and a few distracting effects, Shadows does give viewers a satisfactory fix of suspense.

Indie filmmakers have to make a few choices early in development about how to approach a limited budget. If these decisions are ignored, it can lead to a final product that ultimately feels undercooked and overly ambitious. Here, Rossi, who also penned the script, clearly outlines the tone and style of film right from the start. The benefit to that strategy being that the audience already knows how to respond when the plot unravels. It’s not necessarily as much about Shadows being somewhat predictable as it is about the awareness viewers have for how the film wishes them to engage with the material. Just because you might know what you can expect, doesn’t mean you can’t be surprised by a myriad of other interesting filmmaking gimmicks.

Take for instance, the approach to action sequences: not bulky or overblown, but focused on how characters respond to certain situations rather than shaping every moment around a kill-counter kind of quota. While there are moments where suspension of disbelief is disrupted by issues in sound mixing, they are quickly brushed to the side by a few stellar performances. Eric Etebari, Rahart Adams, Krista Allen, and Francis Capra, specifically, kept Shadows from being completely bland by elevating Rossi’s script to another level. In a nod to, what I choose to believe, is the Fast and Furious franchise, Rossi ties a somewhat intricate crime thriller together on the basis of family. It could have easily gotten very cheesy but fortunately there’s a greater level of self-awareness here.

In the same way that Shadows doesn’t always take itself too seriously, the film opens a lane of dialogue about repairing past relationships and looking towards the future. For much of the film, our characters are entrenched in the past. Forgiving old mistakes and marking a new path forward will be the only way they can make it out of the dangerous lifestyles they’ve put themselves in. Unfortunately, not everyone will get the chance to because Shadows treats us to a variety of pleasing death sequences that are, surprisingly, not cookie-cutter like most other indies. Some serious thought and attention-to-detail went into making these scenes possible and it is not without notice.

You can now rent Shadows on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, or VUDU.