Starring: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Moonshine, fast cars, guys getting their throats slit, other guys getting important parts sliced off, and guns, guns, guns: it?s all there in Lawless, a rootin? tootin? hillbilly gangster film that has just about everything you might want, with the possible exception of a point. As often happens in these projects, brutal violence, strong language and nudity become their own reward.
Lawless was made by John Hillcoat and Nick Cave, the director and writer behind the hyper-violent Australian film The Proposition. They have not lost their taste for blood or for evocative set design: Lawless takes place in the wild and woolly Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, circa 1931, a location awash in vintage Fords, gangsters with Tommy guns and dusty mountain towns with signs for Chesterfield cigarettes, Kist beverages and (my favourite) the Fire Proof Hotel.
In the milieu, as the French say, live the Bondurant brothers, a real-life clan of bootleggers ? the film is based on The Wettest County in the World, a novel that fictionalizes their adventures ? who turned out the strongest moonshine in these here parts. At one stage, someone runs out of gas and uses white lightning to get his truck moving again.
They?re a strange mix: Forrest (Tom Hardy, unleashed from his villainous mask in The Dark Knight Rises and drawling to beat the band) is the leader. He carries brass knuckles and a don?t-back-down attitude. ?We control the fear,? he says. ?Without the fear we?re as good as dead.?
His brothers are Howard (Jason Clarke), who?s kind of nutsy violent, and Jack (Shia LaBeouf), the baby of the family, who?s pretend violent. Jack dreams of fancy suits and fast cars, and he idolizes Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman, in an extended cameo), a Chicago gangster who turns up every once in a while to fire a machine gun at people. Banner seems like a genial enough sort, as long as you don?t let him get behind you with a shovel.
Everything is swell ? the Bondurants make the moonshine, the sheriff buys it from them and the G-men mostly stay away ? until the arrival of Special Agent Charlie Rakes, a corrupt cop from Chicago. He?s played by Guy Pearce, who showed his new edge of danger in the sci-fi thriller Lockout and is a lip-smacking over-the-top villain here: in bow tie and gaudy suits, his hair slicked back and rigorously parted down the middle, he brings a cruel sadism to the whiskey wars, and he?s not afraid of no mountain moonshiner neither.
?Forrest Bondurant is different from other fellas,? the sheriff warns him.
?Different?,? asks Rakes, enjoying the company of this hick.
?Indestructible,? says the sheriff.
That?s the legend, anyway, and while Howard rages and Jack moons around trying to start his own business with the disabled Cricket (Dane DeHaan), Forrest squints with indomitable calm. He?s a Depression-era version of the cowboy hero, the fastest brass knuckles in the east.
The knuckles are used a lot: Lawless is brutal ? there?s even a scene where a man is tarred and feathered ? and not much softened by a couple of love stories. One is Jack?s courtship of Bertha (Mia Wasikowska), the quietly knowing daughter of a preacher and one of those movie good girls drawn to bad boys. This would be more persuasive if LaBeouf seemed more of a bad boy and less of a formless wise guy whose main role is to get beat up.
Then there?s Maggie (Jessica Chastain), a former ?fan dancer? escaping the violent life of Chicago, and boy, did she ever pick the wrong county. Slyly sexy, she attaches herself to Forrest when he pounds the bejesus out of a couple of bad guys for her. Forrest pounds the bejesus out of people a lot in a way that seems both reluctant and bloodthirsty. Chastain is also the reason for the ?nudity? warning.
It?s a lot of plot, and Hillcoat barely has room for those scenes of old cars careering down mountain roads to the sound of fast fiddle music, heading to the next shootout. At one stage, they go past a billboard picturing a happy family. ?There?s no way like the American way,? it reads. Maybe that?s the point.
Source: http://o.canada.com/2012/08/29/movie-review-lawless/
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