If you were to use a plugin that uses shortcode you can call it in your template by using this in your template:
<?php echo do_shortcode ('[your-shortcode]'); ?>
You can also do something similar to this form / code below for a front end login:
<form method="post" action="<?php bloginfo('url') ?>/wp-login.php" class="wp-user-form">
<div class="username">
<label for="user_login"><?php _e('Username'); ?>: </label>
<input type="text" name="log" value="<?php echo esc_attr(stripslashes($user_login)); ?>" size="20" id="user_login" tabindex="11" />
</div>
<div class="password">
<label for="user_pass"><?php _e('Password'); ?>: </label>
<input type="password" name="pwd" value="" size="20" id="user_pass" tabindex="12" />
</div>
<div class="login_fields">
<div class="rememberme">
<label for="rememberme">
<input type="checkbox" name="rememberme" value="forever" checked="checked" id="rememberme" tabindex="13" /> Remember me
</label>
</div>
<?php do_action('login_form'); ?>
<input type="submit" name="user-submit" value="<?php _e('Login'); ?>" tabindex="14" class="user-submit" />
<input type="hidden" name="redirect_to" value="<?php echo $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; ?>" />
<input type="hidden" name="user-cookie" value="1" />
</div>
</form>