Review of Lawless (2012) by Dnavl — 15 Mar 2013

A brilliant movie but just misses the chance of being the masterpiece it strived near with a perfect selection of cast its almost too impossible to dislike overall. I felt the direction of its characters could have had more depth z& screen time, the movie presented some charming locations added together with some beautiful filming and had a broad as well as relaxing score, Lawless is about 3 brothers (played by Hardy, LaBeouf & Clarke) who run a moonshine business but they are then confronted by a sent Special Deputy (played by Pearce) who wishes to have a cut from the brothers business but is turned down which sends both parties into a violent war.

Tom Hardy pulls off a stellar performance as lead brother Forrest Bondurant by showing his diversity as an actor from his strength & pride shown in his character to developing a gritty American accent and showing us he can lead a heavily talented cast, easily making this his best performance to date.

Shia LaBeouf plays Jack Bondurant and surprisingly shows some great acting, showing he can distant himself from the Transformers movies and convert to a much more serious & vulnerable role bringing some sense of wittiness & courage to his character which is well built upon throughout the movie.

Guy Pearce sure kept the standards high in terms of acting by giving us a legit Antagonist in Deputy Charles Rakes but sadly he single handily delivers the only urge of a real threat in the movie (apart from the attack on Forrest).

He puts on a clinic of wickedness in his character and is surely successful in creating a sinister deputy but does fall into a wacky state late in the movie. As for Gary Oldman I felt performed perfectly but his screen time was too short which I felt was a major loss of opportunity same goes for Jason Clarke who plays Howard Bondurant the third brother who does have some great scenes but lacked in depth, emotion and screen time to.

He showed a lot of strength and will in his role but lacked major depth almost being more like a family friend then brother throughout the movie. Chastain & Wasikowska both played love interests to Jack & Forrest having great roles but the movie barely capitalized on it and kept scenes simple showing the only challenge for their characters was acceptance and love, I felt they missed a opportunity to shift parts of the movie into a deeper thriller & drama here.

The violence can be quite vicious but I felt it kept it relevant to the film and the action scenes weren't blown out of proportion. Lawless is a great movie with minor downfalls but overall it's a beautifully scripted film that deserves more praise then criticism.