Lawless

Year: 2012
Genre: Crime drama
Director: John Hillcoat


Plot: Based on the true story of the Bondurant brothers, who ran an illegal moonshine business during the Prohibition era in the 1930s.


The gist: This is one of those stories where the outlaws are the good guys and the lawmen are the villains. In this case, we follow the lives of the Bondurant brothers: Jack, Forrest and Howard, who make and sell illegal moonshine during the Prohibition era. They face a threat in the form of a corrupt lawman named Charlie Rakes, who wants a cut of their profits.

The story is solid but the way the story is told is rather weak. In the middle portion of the film, attention is diverted to the brothers' personal lives, where Jack courts the local priest's daughter while Forrest gets involved with their bar assistant, Maggie. Then we're suddenly shoved into the third act when Rakes steps back into the picture and a messy shootout becomes the film's climax. A bit more time spent on the story in the second half would really help.


The good: Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain and Guy Pearce all put in great work here. Hardy is a man of few words as Forrest, but he's intense as heck. Pearce is suitably slimy as Rakes while Chastain is magnetic and vulnerable as Maggie. Kudos also to Hillcoat and the crew for the authentic sets and music score.

The bad: Shia Labeouf tries his best but he can't shake off the Sam Witwicky persona. He's much better as Jack here than in Transformers though. Also the above mentioned weak storytelling, and Gary Oldman is totally wasted in the role of a mobster, he barely got five minutes of screen time.


Verdict: It's a decent historical crime drama, but there's plenty of room for improvement here. (3/5)