Lawless Review

Justin and I saw Lawless on September 1, 2012. This was an impressive movie with some intense scenes and decent performances. Three brothers played well by Shia Lebeouf, Tom Hardy, and Jason Clarke are bootleggers in Prohibition era America. It's 1931, and they are getting threats from all sides: mostly from law enforcement, thus defining the title of this movie. Nobody truly plays by the rule. This is actually based on reality with the Bondurant family, which is who the brothers portray. They team up with Gary Oldman's Floyd Banner character to make more profit on their moonshine business. Lebeouf really did a great job as Jack and I feel this is what he should stick to. He was great balancing comedy and drama trying to impress Mia Wasikowska's Bertha character (a preacher's daughter), but at the same time trying to do more with the bootlegging business. He's the youngest member of the family and Forrest and Howard want to protect him. Tom Hardy was an absolute badass in this. He would not stay down. I was impressed at how much he took. Howard is underrated as Clarke was also in Public Enemies and it really helped to shape his role here. He had cold eyes, but he cares about his family and lashes out when his family and business is threatened. Forrest is the most reserved, but when he has to he'll take you down. Beware his fists, especially when they have brass knucks on them. Jessica Chastain was the only part I didn't like. She was just kind of there. They needed to put a love interest for Forrest, but she did nothing and was unecessary. However, the overall feud between the Bondurant family and the main villain of this movie in Guy Pearce's Charlie Rakes character is what was awesome about this. You just loathe Pearce's character here. There are some intense beatings that Jack takes. I do think that Rakes character was actually the best one because of how villainous he was. Great action and storylines made this a good movie. I'll give it a 4/5. I was impressed with everything else in this movie. All the male leads did an excellent job which is what kept the movie going. Beware that this movie has extreme violence, but it was necessary for this story. It made things more personal. Interestingly enough, the Boundurant's abide by more laws than the actual law enforcement. I am definitely glad I checked this out. I was interested initially from the trailers and cast.