I am surprised at how little Lawless was talked about when it first hit theaters. They didn’t really give away any of the plot, but made it seem like a ganster/western movie of some sort, with some bad ass actors.
And you know, uhh, Shia LaBeouf.
Damn it Shia, what did I tell you about showing up in my movies?
Franklin County, Virgina, early 1900s, prohibition is a bitch. But thankfully this is the wettest county in the world and basically everyone is growing Moonshine, so much that even some gangsters from Chicago are getting their hands wet out here.
The Bondourant brothers are immortal, through legend and talk from their brother Forrest (Tom Hardy). He survived a flu that killed most people who got it, and his other brother Howard (Jason Clarke) was the only surviving member of his platoon in WW1. The youngest brother, Jack (LaBeouf) is the runt of the group and wants to join in on all of the activities but, you know, he is small.
He has big dreams though, and even worships the great gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), and is hoping to start his own moonshine batch with his weird friend Cricket (Dane DeHaan) who is at least good with tinkering.
Things are going great! That is until some DA Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) is brought in, from Chicago, to clean up this moonshine business in the area, even though the local cops don’t care. His style and aura is definitely not welcome, you know, because he wants to arrest them and maybe kill them.
Kill them? Yeah, life is brutal in this time period. People die, lots of people, and it is fucking gruesome. Most people would fear for their lives, you know, if they weren’t immortal (and missing a lot of their brain cells). All while this is going on, Jack is working on seducing a local Amish like chick (Mia Wasikowska) and a former dancer from Chicago is here to work at their restaurant (Jessica Chastain).
Basically a nice quiet life. But with lots of guns and violence.
Despite my best attempts to make the movie seem lame, it was a blast to see. Hardy and Clarke as the older brothers were both unique and brought a lot to their characters, especially Hardy. His low witted self always made me either chuckle or grimace based on what he was doing (or had done to him).
Gary Oldman is barely in this movie, but Guy Pearce definitely plays his own extremely unique character, so much that I couldn’t even remember what Guy Pearce actually looked and sounded like.
But Shia? Well he did a fine job too. Didn’t ruin the movie like I thought he would, but I am disappointed that he was the main character and not Forrest.
I think the movie could have been a bit shorter than what happened though, or even better, just less “down” scenes. The church scene was really odd, and I do’t know why they never really explained what the heck was going on there. There won’t be any sequels to the movie, as the entire story is told, which is a shame. I’d almost want to see more of Forrest and Howard when they were younger and just getting started.