John Hillcoat’s Lawless is a boozy, rugged, bruiser of a movie, filled with violent spectacle, excellent performances, a sharp script with pungent, poetic dialogue from multi-hyphenate Nick Cave, who also did the spirited music, and a fantastic visual sense that conveys harsh beauty in every frame (it doesn’t hurt when Benoit Delhomme is behind the camera). I love every sweaty, bloody, dirty minute of this prohibition era Western/gangster hybrid, and I get a kick out of the idea that while Hillcoat’s film is unfolding, the events of Michael Mann’s Public Enemies are going down a few hundred miles North-West of the West Virginia locales of Lawless. Hillcoat is turning into a major filmmaker – this is the guy also directed The Road, The Proposition, and Triple 9, and with each film he exhibits a dynamic photographic quality that is reminiscent at times of Terrence Malick in that he seems fascinated with organic beauty and how nature can be corrupted. Light and fun movies he does not make.
Based on true events, this is a rough and nasty film (you get to see someone tarred and feathered amongst other cruelties…), featuring multiple shoot-outs (the climactic gun battle is a wowser), more than a few graphic beat-downs, and lots and lots of macho swagger and dangerous antics. Shia LaBeouf turned in a gritty, more than credible performance as Jack, the youngest of the three Bondurant brothers, a group of men responsible for some of the best moonshine in the area. Quiet and reserved and not ready for violence the way his older brothers are, he’s the most practical of the three, and it’s his character that changes the most over the course of the narrative. Tom Hardy is simply unstoppable as the oldest brother Forrest, a man caught up in his own myth of immortality, and rightfully so – when you see what he was able to survive you just won’t believe it. But…it’s true. Intimidating doesn’t cover Hardy in this film; I love how he simply grunts a quarter of his dialogue! Jason Clarke is the middle brother, and he spends the majority of the film in a drunken stupor, ready for fisticuffs at a moment’s notice.
Their illegal operations are challenged by a big city cop played brilliantly by Guy Pearce, who really cuts loose with a vicious, layered performance of evil menace. Everything about Pearce in this film, from his hairstyle to the shaved eyebrows to the fey mannerisms and his cadence of speech – it’s a delicious piece of acting and it further underscores how he’s one of the most versatile on-screen talents currently working. Jessica Chastain is all elegance and beauty in an underwritten supporting role as a wounded city soul looking for a new start in the wrong country town, but it’s not her story at the end of the day, and for what she’s asked to do, she does so with her usual pointedness and class. I do wish there had been a bit more with Gary Oldman’s gangster character, as he gets involved with the Bondurant’s enterprise at the film’s mid-section, and I could have gone for a few more scenes of interplay between Hardy and Chastain (who develop a romance), but credit Hillcoat for keeping the film on point and moving at a brisk clip; upon second viewing it really becomes apparent how there are zero wasted scenes in this movie.
And because they decided to shoot the film on location in Georgia, the entire production has a realistic atmosphere and lived-in quality, from the backwoods locations to the recreated era-appropriate gas stations and general stores. And the there’s all of the little, detail-oriented bits that Lawless revels in — the gas pumps, the manicure on Chastain’s fingertips during her introduction, the period appropriate cars and clothes and guns and hats and radios — this movie is filled with stuff from yesteryear. This is a really strong piece of work that got respectable reviews and did decent box office but one that deserves to find a big audience on Blu-ray, which I have a feeling it will.
Podcasting Them Softly 