A violent tale of Prohibition-era hillbilly gangsters, Lawless comes marinated in blood and moonshine. It’s based on the book The Wettest County in the World (that’s Franklin County, VA, not Lancashire, UK) by Matt Bondurant, which traced the true story of his own grandfather and two brothers who ran illegal home-brewed hooch across the backwaters and got embroiled in all-out gang warfare with rival clans and the law. The filmmakers clearly want you to imagine L.A. Confidential with bootleggers, or The Untouchables gone country.
Unfortunately Lawless fails to live up to those two crime sagas. Nor does it resonate like director John Hillcoat’s two previous films, eerie Outback Western The Proposition and doom-laden apocalyptic drama The Road. What we’ve got here is a solid, smartly cast, occasionally downright nasty B-movie that too closely resembles the product its outlaw heroes brew: a slug of rotgut rather than refined malt; a quick, cheap kick that does the basics and definitely won’t improve with age.
It’s 1931 and the Bondurant brothers have a slick but strictly small-time bootleg racket going. Big brother Howard (Jason Clarke) is the muscle, while young pup Jack (Shia LaBeouf) is driver and all-round annoyance. Holding it all together in the middle is Forrest (Tom Hardy), the brains and, when required, the enforcer. The Bondurant myth is built on their being “invincible”, both Howard and Forrest having respectively survived WWI and the life-threatening disease that killed their parents. So when big city special deputy Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) is brought in to clamp down on local outlaw operations (and pretty much everyone in Franklin seems to be at it), he’s all-too willing to put the Bondurant myth to the test.
Weaving in and around these Brothers Grim are Jessica Chastain’s showgirl fugitive and all-round Bondurant sidekick; and Mia Wasikowska as the local preacher’s daughter who Jack takes a shine to. There’s also Gary Oldman as legendary gangster Floyd Banner, who’s playing his own angles on the moonshine front and isn’t afraid to do his own dirty work.
With all this fascinating set up, what’s most disappointing about is how straight it is. In terms of genre conventions, it’s practically law-abiding, never really attempting to fill this stark terrain in anything but the broadest brush strokes. LaBeouf is once again the eager young up-and-comer out to prove himself; Hardy’s a moody bruiser; the women suffer or simper in silence; and worst of all, Pearce’s fey sadist - with shaved eyebrows, effete mannerisms and a centre parting you could drive a train through - seems like he’s stepped out of the local am-dram society. He doesn’t have a moustache but if he did, it’d be constantly a-twirling.
The violence - often sudden and shocking - is effectively repulsive, often strangely centred on necks and throats, though there’s also a novel if gruesome use of someone’s . But in terms of the overall lack of accountability, the films plays the old card: win sympathy for your family of killers by having their rivals be that much more vicious and sneaky. It’s a tired conceit and, when wrapped up in a Disney-like coda as it is here, feels contrived.
That said, Benoit Delhomme’s imagery and the set design looks authentically gritty and a cast of rising stars hold it all together. Hardy, once again, is the single most charismatic thing onscreen, the actor’s own magnetism finding shading and even welcome glimpses of humour in his taciturn brooder. And it’s a shame he doesn’t share screen time with his Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy/Dark Knight Rises co-star Oldman, who’s wasted in basically a cameo.
If musician Nick Cave’s by-the-numbers screenplay – which streamlines and tightens Bondurant’s memoir – isn’t his finest moment, at least he fares far better in his day job, pulling together the film’s soundtrack. Rather than just compile a collection of old Appalachian standards, in the (excellent) vein of, say, O Brother Where Art Thou, Cave and Bad Seed cohort Warren Ellis favour a more intriguing, modern approach. A bluegrass version of The Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ shows more subtlety and innovation than anything we see or hear from the film’s characters.
At heart, this is Lawless’s main problem. It’s pacy, punchy - often literally, a knuckleduster being Forrest’s weapon of choice - but relatively frothy. The Proposition dealt with similar ideas - simmering male violence in a primitive landscape - but distilled it into a genuinely dangerous, potent brew. Lawless may be graphic at times, but ultimately plays it safe. It’s an alcopop that thinks it’s absinthe.
Source : http://www.ign.com
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