Lawless - Die Gesetzlosen

Lawless takes a unique perspective of the prohibition era away from the gangsters of the day to the people that ran the moonshine distilling and distribution businesses behind the scenes and the challenges they faced. Based on a true story, this movie follows 3 brothers as they fight for their position and respect in the illegal business.

Few actors bring a high level of intensity to the character they play as Tom Hardy does and for his role as Forrest Bondurant, it's no let down. Shia LaBouf is too hokey an actor to take seriously in his role and tended to undersell some scenes due to a lack of appropriate or sincere expression and others like when he was getting a beat down by Special Deputy Charley Rakes couldn't oversell the scene more unless he did actual cartwheels after getting hit. The rest of the cast gave a quality performance and overall this movie is an interesting and exciting film to see.

Hold it everyone! Don't be put off because this has Shia Le Beouf in it. Yes, some of you loath him for the Transformers movies, Indy 4 and plenty of other stuff. However, in this one he manages to find a good vehicle to change his tact.

We are in prohibition time, in the countryside in Virginia. The men are tough and they enforce their own law protecting their moonshine businesses. However they aren't the cringing redneck cliché of many other films; this isn't Deliverance. This is a dark movie where it seems those outwith of the religious community live and survive by force. In comes law enforcers from outside led by a sadistic sergeant, and we have an explosive mix.

Again, don't get the wrong impression. This film isn't about gung-ho good v evil. This is a lot more. Based on a true story (albeit likely taking big liberties with the truth), this is about the relationship of three brothers: two are ruthless whilst the third (Le Beouf) is weak. They look out for each other and that's the real nub.

Action comes generally in short sharp moments, but thankfully doesn't detract from the rest of the movie. Surprisingly some great acting and great camera work.

Personally, I enjoyed this very much. Ending was the only bit I was disappointed with but rest was very good. Give it a try, you may be surprised with what you find.

Lawless was extremely well filmed, looked great and stayed true to year it was set in. The cast was strong and all delivered good performances, especially Tom Hardy, who once again showed how much of a versatile actor he is. Shia LaBeouf was also a stand out performer for me.

The plot is simple but easy to follow. There are some extremely gruesome scenes and some bits of good gun action. Apart from a few scenes, the film was pretty much just dialouge. There wasn't much going on really. It was a decent film but ultimately it is something that I won't remember in a few weeks. I can see why some have rated it so highly, I guess this just isn't the sort of thing I normally like. It was good but I wouldn't watch it again.

7/10.

Even if this film feels like it didn't quite reach its potential, it's still a fairly watchable Prohibition-era drama. The cast is excellent with Tom Hardy leading the way and picking up the slack for Shia LaBeouf. Gary Oldman was shockingly underutilized though and Guy Pearce is great for most of the film, but goes a bit off the rails at the end. The action is solid, however the story doesn't really seem to go anywhere and set up a lot of lingering plot threads. Lawless isn't a masterpiece by any means, but it's a worthwhile watch.

'Lawless' is definitely a great film but there's something missing.

The acting is really strong; Tom Hardy's performance is probably his best so far. His voice is so different to his normal voice which really highlights how he has worked hard on his performance. I was really surprised by Shia LaBeouf's performance, he's never really impressed me but he gave a great performance here. He really proved that he could do some proper acting in the future and hopefully move away from the 'Transformers' series. Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain both perform well but their roles are wasted here. They have no real purpose in the film and are merely there as love interests. It wouldn't have been such an issue if they had gotten any actress for these roles but they instead chose two of the best rising stars with huge amounts of talent. Guy Pierce is outstanding here but his role becomes almost comical towards the end. He gives a great performance though and is quite disturbing. Gary Oldman gives a really good performance but has only 5 minutes screen time! It seems like such a waste, it would have been interesting to see his character included in the plot a lot more.

Overall this film was fantastic but there was a few things that director John Hillcoat could have improved that would have made this film truly brilliant, such as giving more characters some crucial screen time. The violence was not really an issue; I don't think it diverted the film away from anything which is good. It contained the right amount of violence for the film and shouldn't put anyone off from watching this.