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The Bondurant Brothers, 3 completely different men.
The eldest, Howard (Clarke), is a bit of a loose cannon and doesn't hesitate in getting involved in a fight, even if it's with the local law.
The middle Brother, Forrest (Hardy), is more even tempered, highly intelligent and just as lethal in a brawl as his older Brother. Forrest leads the family.
The youngest, Jack (LaBeouf), is smaller, weaker, more afraid... but still looks up to his Brothers and wants to be like them.
Jack wants to be a Moonshiner... a Franklin County Bootlegger.
The Brothers however will be thrown into a battle of wits, fistfights and bullets... and all three of them will have their disparate personalities tested when a new Lawman arrives from Chicago... who appears to be more twisted and perverted than anyone could imagine.
---
Awesome.
Brutality, blood soaked fights and hard edged action backed up by rousing performances from all involved and backed up with some incredible feel-good cinema and giggles to boot(leg)...
sorry, couldn't resist.
Lawless starts out quiet. It allows for the character development to build gently over the first 25 minutes or so, mixed in with a few fistfights of course, but it allows you to get to know the people involved.
Secondly, from then on in it's all plot. All of it.
And it's all written brilliantly real. Seeing as it was based on a true story, that might seem obvious, but Lawless never ever shies away from reality.
The character traits mixed with the sequence of events and how the sequences play on the mind-sets of the characters adds a huge likability factor to the proceedings.
You get to care about the people involved, and can get to caring how they progress with the story.
The they throw in the slimy antagonist, which again, you get the chance to know him before the filmmakers start getting him to do horrible things which adds more depth to him and makes you hate him more.
The main thing though, is how solid everything in the story is... the writing, acting, screenplay, soundtrack... it's a solid film across the board and draws the viewer into believing everything that's going on.
Which brings me to the acting.
Shia LaBeouf seriously knocked me back with this one. I'm not a fan of his work to be completely honest, but here he's down to earth, full of naïve wonder and excitement and always impresses when the going gets tough. Whether fighting, crying, making funny or wooing his ladyfriend, Shia impresses with every turn.
Backing Shia up is Mia Wasikowska as Bertha Minnix... in real life, Mia was stalked by Shia as part of his role, kinda like a method actor, so it made their connection much more realistic... Mia seems to be genuinely playing with Shia's emotions on screen too. They've very good together and Mia makes for a beautiful love interest.
Jason Clarke isn't seen a massive amount though. It adds a mystery to his character though, I'd have liked to have seen more of the older, more unhinged Brother. Clarke is good when seen though.
Jessica Chastain is awesome too as Forrest's (middle Brother) love interest. She has more to do than just a damsel in distress or some sort of redemption role for Forrest. Chastain also carries the aftermath of a particularly upsetting scene exceptionally well.
Tom Hardy as middle Brother Forrest though, absolutely makes this film. The middle but leader of the Brothers and Hardy's natural talent for having something behind his eyes when he goes quiet, is a masterful stroke for the character. Even though he can be rather disturbing to watch at times, he still makes you want to know him. Exceptional acting across the board. He even wore weights on his legs to give himself an appearance of being an out of shape, old-before-his-time character.
Guy Pearce also makes a huge impact... his slimy, disgusting and violent Lawman with little to no emotion apart from anger and OCD, makes for an exceptional bad guy.
Pearce also, it appears, shaved most of his eyebrows off to give himself even more of an inhuman appearance.
Pearce really makes your toes curl.
Back up comes from Gary Oldman (wanted to see more of him), Dane DeHaan (great role), Noah Taylor and Lew Temple.
The action, though good, is used sparingly.
The trailers give an impression of action, gunfights, almost old west style in tone...
However there's only a few scenes of more highly charged action and gunplay.
There are many scenes with fisticuffs going on, and more than a few scenes of brutal violence...
... but it's all toned back into reality rather than some sort of action heavy bash-em-up like maybe Bruce Willis' Last Man Standing.
The choreography is tip top though, and the fights never shy away from blood, bone and guts, and occasionally there's a scene that really makes you cringe while watching due to the nature of the violence.
Put it this way, the film is 18 rated in Britain, which is one of the reasons I bought it without watching it first... and I wasn't disappointed.
Review #209, Movie #280
Lawless
Year Of Release
2012
Director
John Hillcoat
Producer
Lucy Fisher, Douglas Wick, Megan Ellison, Michael Benaroya
Writer
Nick Cave, Matt Bondurant
Cast
Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Dane DeHaan, Mia Wasikowska and Gary Oldman
Notes
Based upon the novel, and true story, written by Matt Bondurant, the movie itself is pretty brutal at times yet filmmakers actually cut back a lot of the brutal things that happened in real life and kept only a handful of occurrences in the finished cut.
The filmmakers also always used two cameras for every scene. This gave a freedom in the editing room to make each scene as perfect as possible and capture all of the actors’ emotions.
The original cast for the Bondurant Brothers was also going to be Shia LaBeouf, James Franco and Ryan Gosling… after a number of cast members dropped out though, putting the project on hold… in a chance meeting though, Director Hillcoat watched Bronson (2008) and was compelled to write a letter to Tom Hardy explaining his admiration.
Hardy and Hillcoat then swapped a couple of scripts between them for different projects, one of them was the script for Lawless (known as The Promised Land at the time), which Hardy immediately fell in love with.
The rest is (ahem) history.
---
The Bondurant Brothers, 3 completely different men.
The eldest, Howard (Clarke), is a bit of a loose cannon and doesn't hesitate in getting involved in a fight, even if it's with the local law.
The middle Brother, Forrest (Hardy), is more even tempered, highly intelligent and just as lethal in a brawl as his older Brother. Forrest leads the family.
The youngest, Jack (LaBeouf), is smaller, weaker, more afraid... but still looks up to his Brothers and wants to be like them.
Jack wants to be a Moonshiner... a Franklin County Bootlegger.
The Brothers however will be thrown into a battle of wits, fistfights and bullets... and all three of them will have their disparate personalities tested when a new Lawman arrives from Chicago... who appears to be more twisted and perverted than anyone could imagine.
---
Awesome.
Brutality, blood soaked fights and hard edged action backed up by rousing performances from all involved and backed up with some incredible feel-good cinema and giggles to boot(leg)...
sorry, couldn't resist.Lawless starts out quiet. It allows for the character development to build gently over the first 25 minutes or so, mixed in with a few fistfights of course, but it allows you to get to know the people involved.
Secondly, from then on in it's all plot. All of it.
And it's all written brilliantly real. Seeing as it was based on a true story, that might seem obvious, but Lawless never ever shies away from reality.
The character traits mixed with the sequence of events and how the sequences play on the mind-sets of the characters adds a huge likability factor to the proceedings.
You get to care about the people involved, and can get to caring how they progress with the story.
The they throw in the slimy antagonist, which again, you get the chance to know him before the filmmakers start getting him to do horrible things which adds more depth to him and makes you hate him more.
The main thing though, is how solid everything in the story is... the writing, acting, screenplay, soundtrack... it's a solid film across the board and draws the viewer into believing everything that's going on.
Which brings me to the acting.
Shia LaBeouf seriously knocked me back with this one. I'm not a fan of his work to be completely honest, but here he's down to earth, full of naïve wonder and excitement and always impresses when the going gets tough. Whether fighting, crying, making funny or wooing his ladyfriend, Shia impresses with every turn.
Backing Shia up is Mia Wasikowska as Bertha Minnix... in real life, Mia was stalked by Shia as part of his role, kinda like a method actor, so it made their connection much more realistic... Mia seems to be genuinely playing with Shia's emotions on screen too. They've very good together and Mia makes for a beautiful love interest.
Jason Clarke isn't seen a massive amount though. It adds a mystery to his character though, I'd have liked to have seen more of the older, more unhinged Brother. Clarke is good when seen though.
Jessica Chastain is awesome too as Forrest's (middle Brother) love interest. She has more to do than just a damsel in distress or some sort of redemption role for Forrest. Chastain also carries the aftermath of a particularly upsetting scene exceptionally well.
Tom Hardy as middle Brother Forrest though, absolutely makes this film. The middle but leader of the Brothers and Hardy's natural talent for having something behind his eyes when he goes quiet, is a masterful stroke for the character. Even though he can be rather disturbing to watch at times, he still makes you want to know him. Exceptional acting across the board. He even wore weights on his legs to give himself an appearance of being an out of shape, old-before-his-time character.
Guy Pearce also makes a huge impact... his slimy, disgusting and violent Lawman with little to no emotion apart from anger and OCD, makes for an exceptional bad guy.
Pearce also, it appears, shaved most of his eyebrows off to give himself even more of an inhuman appearance.
Pearce really makes your toes curl.
Back up comes from Gary Oldman (wanted to see more of him), Dane DeHaan (great role), Noah Taylor and Lew Temple.
The action, though good, is used sparingly.
The trailers give an impression of action, gunfights, almost old west style in tone...
However there's only a few scenes of more highly charged action and gunplay.
There are many scenes with fisticuffs going on, and more than a few scenes of brutal violence...
... but it's all toned back into reality rather than some sort of action heavy bash-em-up like maybe Bruce Willis' Last Man Standing.
The choreography is tip top though, and the fights never shy away from blood, bone and guts, and occasionally there's a scene that really makes you cringe while watching due to the nature of the violence.
Put it this way, the film is 18 rated in Britain, which is one of the reasons I bought it without watching it first... and I wasn't disappointed.
---
All in all... very violent when the violence is used... but the solid script and screenplay backed up by the best acting of its type, Lawless is one for the books.
Exciting, great audience-character connections, some heart touching scenes and some laughs along the way too...
It feels underplayed at times, but being based on a true story gives it the weight needed to make an impression.
A damned good film.
My rating: 97%
