Lawless

Overview

There are two words that seem an almost permanent fixture in a film’s opening credits these days: “Based On” (though we’d also have accepted “Tom Hardy”). Ours is the era of adaptation and reboot, where the benchmark for originality has been whittled down to just retelling someone else’s story in an original way. Be it Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, The Avengers based on the Marvel Comics or Karate Kid based on the earlier Karate Kid, Hollywood increasingly feels like the dodgy used-car lot simply polishing its stolen wares and reselling them as new. And nothing sells better than those wares stolen from life itself under the golden banner of “based on a true story”. It’s the bewitching phrase that somehow makes the film seem more important and convinces us to not just suspend our disbelief but cast it aside completely. So for a film like Lawless, one that routinely pushes plausibility to the very extreme, you can’t help but wonder just how true the ‘true story’ is upon which it’s based.

That story is 2008’s "The Wettest County in the World" by Matt Bondurant, whose grandfather and great uncles became one of the prohibition-era’s most infamous bootleggers. Inevitably for a film set in that time, Lawless (which was adapted for the screen by Nick Cave) is full of the ruthless violence and corruption that defined one America’s darkest periods, however it departs from the norm by steering clear of Chicago and Atlantic City, focussing instead on the backwater hills of Franklin County, Virginia. There, the Bondurant boys ran a simple but effective operation distilling and distributing moonshine to both lawbreakers and lawmen alike, until the arrival of a corrupt federal officer (Guy Pearce) threatened to mire the entire region in a devastating territorial war.

Leading the gang, Tom Hardy puts in another impressive and imposing performance as the taciturn-yet-brutal brother Forrest. He grunts more than he speaks, but combined with the actor’s sheer physical presence we need nothing more to believe he’s the born leader with unwavering mettle. Aussie actor Jason Clarke plays his enforcer brother Howard, while Shia LeBeouf rounds out the trio as Jack – the weak but smarter kid trying to prove his worth to the gang. They’re supported by an amazing ensemble cast including Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life), Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre) and Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight), however it’s Guy Pearce that commands most of the remaining screen time. His portrayal of the sadistic and effete federal marshal Charlie Rakes offers a performance as creepy as it is overblown, but with motivations that are never properly made clear to the audience, it’s difficult to regard him as anything but annoying.

Directed by Aussie John Hillcoat (The Proposition), Lawless largely crawls along between sporadic moments of extreme violence thanks to its less-than-perfect script, however its fine performances, impressive cinematography and – yes – ‘real life backstory’ make it still worth a look.