Movie Title: Lawless
Director: John Hillcoat
Date Released: August 29th, 2012
Date Seen: September 2nd, 2012
Part 1 – Spoiler Free Quickie Review
Awesome movie. Full of hot guys, moonshine, violence without being visually grotesque, and a decent story. I had a great time watching this movie. The cinematography was great. They kept it simple to fit the style of the movie. The color scheme (oranges, golds, browns, dark greens) were ever present but beautiful. It helped for certain characters to stand out – and clearly show that they were different than everyone else in the town. The acting was great by Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy did get his mumbling-character again though which was slightly disappointing. He’s such an articulate man (see Bronson, Inception, etc.) why does he always have to get mumbling roles?! Shia LaBeouf did good although I feel like the director kept trying to give him TOO many emotional scenes. But he did play the trying-to-impress his older brothers role quite well. His romance in the movie with Mia Wasikowska was cute and they had chemistry so that worked.
The only real let down of the movie was the lack of Gary Oldman’s character. I feel like perhaps in the book (which is based on the real life story of the Bondurant brothers, written by one of their grandsons) the character of “Floyd Banner” might have had a bigger influence in the moonshine business. We literally only see Gary Oldman’s character in two scenes. It’s like a glorified cameo. And it could have been left out in the movie, really. I just think more could have been shown of him or he should have just been avoided all together. The ending also was slightly “too perfect”… but it’s a true story, so I’m letting that slide.
It was a great movie – there’s a lot of violence, but the worst you never directly see. It’s implied. There is a rough couple of fight scenes with generally one person severely overpowering someone weaker that are hard to watch, but the worst scenes are just implied violence (such as opening a door and seeing someone tied up and blood everywhere but not witnessing the actual fight/torture).
Part 2 – In-Depth Spoiler Ridden Review/Synopsis
There’s a good synopsis here.
Overall: 7.5/10
Maria's Movie Reviews 