“Lawless” walks a certain line between independent art house cinema and action thriller that past films like “Drive” (2011) have taken
This type of direction makes it difficult to determine what kind of audience the movie is for, but “Lawless” does present something for fans of both genres.
In the technological categories, it delivers the art house, and the thrills mostly come from its bloody violence.
The movie is based on Matt Bondurant‘s 2008 novel “The Wettest County in the World,” which tells the story of his bootlegging ancestors and gives the movie a folk myth.
In the Prohibition era, we follow Bondurant brothers Forrest (Tom Hardy), Jack (Shia LaBeouf) and Howard (Jason Clarke), who use their bar as a front for a liquor bootlegging business. It’s pretty successful with the locals and even the police, who look the other way because they know better than to mess with the older Bondurants.
Young Jack, however, is a different story. He wants to do more than drive around helping with deliveries, but he can’t even bring himself to pull the trigger when necessary. This brings a “coming of age” element to the story as Jack learns from his brothers that the path to being a man depends less on his actions than he anticipated.
The law eventually catches up with these boys when the feds call special deputy Charley Rakes (Guy Pearce) to handle the boys’ illicit activities. He establishes a fee for those who wish to continue bootlegging, and for those who don’t pay, it often comes down to barbaric tactics.
Once the actual rivalry between Rakes and the Bondurant brothers comes into play, the tension starts rising to an unbearable level driven by violent shootouts and bloody beatdowns.
The only characters completely underwritten are the female ones. Jessica Chastain plays Maggie Beauford, a dancer from Chicago who leaves to escape the dangerous life she led. This really isn’t explored, and her character doesn’t see any development, making her merely a simple love interest for Forrest. It’s a sweet romance, though.
Mia Wasikowska is in the same position as Bertha Minnix, the preacher’s daughter Jack has his eyes on. The romantic attraction between her and Jack hardly does anything for the story in terms a romantic tension.
So yes, “Lawless” does endeavor and mostly fail with the story, but where the movie really succeeds is with its incredible cast and technicalities.
As the youngest of the brothers, LaBeouf finally steps out of the shadow that was the creatively bankrupt “Transformers” series. But when he’s placed in scenes with the film’s real treasures Hardy and Pearce, he’s overmatched and delivers the voice-over narration dully.
But Hardy owns the movie in every scene he’s in, giving Forrest a convincing hillbilly swagger. As the wondrously creepy Rakes, Pearce skillfully amplifies the menace in his character without going becoming cartoonish.
In the technical categories, “Lawless” is stunningly photographed with the cinematography and set detail successfully drawing us 80 years into the past.
Though every plot point is predictable three scenes in advance, “Lawless” still delivers with the violence, some surprising hilarity and some very noteworthy performances.