Lawless is the true story of the infamous Bondurant Brothers: bootlegging siblings who made a run for the American Dream in Prohibition-era Virginia. Set in Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, three bootlegging brothers are threatened by a new special deputy and other authorities angling for a cut of their profits.
Fans of The Proposition will have to settle for sublimely evil performances by Gary Oldman (as a murderous rival) and Guy Pearce (as a government agent) and a large quotient of gut-wrenching violence.
Hillcoat makes a foray into Virginia's Prohibition-era moonshine country. But the adaptation (by Hillcoat compadre Nick Cave) is a hokey piece of pop history that wearyingly insists upon its own mythos like a comic-book blockbuster.
The recurring act of violence In 'Lawless' is a brass-knuckle punch to the throat. It's not pretty. The movie's not pretty either, but it's an instant gangster classic.
With a dynamite cast, an iconic screenwriter in rocker Nick Cave and an Aussie director in John Hillcoat, you assume a new classic. What you get is an ambitious try.
You can sense the filth, and smell the rust, and feel the ingrained poverty that might well convince a family of survivors (of World War I and the Spanish flu) to make their fortune selling moonshine to their neighbors.
