Lawless

When I saw the trailer for Lawless, I thought this was in my wheel house. I have always had a peculiar interest in outlaw moonshiners (family being from the south and all). Also being a fan of Nascar, which got it start thanks to those white lightning runners in the first place. Yes the first superstars of Nascar way back when were lawbreaking moonshiners, anyway I digress. As I was saying, I found the subject matter intriguing and then the cast pulled me right in. For those of you who don't know by now (those living under a big rock or something), Tom Hardy is the man. He was the man as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises and he keeps that going here in Lawless as Forrest Bondurant, the elder brother of the Bondurant family. Once I learned that this movie was based on true events, and those Bondurant boys actually lived, well then I couldn't wait to see it.

Starring alongside the man is Shia LeBeouf as the youngest of the Bondurant boys, all bark and no bite Jake Bondurant. He's impetuous, enterprising, and the soul of the family. Where Forrest is the ice and Jason Clarke who plays Howard Bondurant is the fire, Jake is the heart and soul, he is the soft underbelly of the Bondurants, the one that needs to be protected. And with Forrest and especially the hot headed Howard, Jake had all the protection he needed. He works for his brothers in their restaurant/garage doing the grunt work, sweeping the floors and the like but what he really wants to do is get into the shine business. A business in which his brothers are very successful at. Jake feels that he along with his best friend and "business partner" Cricket Pate who also works for the Bondurants, played by Dane DeHaan there's no way he can fail. Howard's fine with letting Jake in but Forrest knows better. He knows Jake is tender and while he may have all the ambition in the world, he doesn't have near enough heart. When Jake and Cricket strike out on their own and make a deal with the notorious Chicago gangster Floyd Banner played with a quiet ferocity by Gary Oldman, Forrest relents.

Everything is fine until Special Deputy Charlie Rakes, played by Guy Pearce comes into town from Chicago. He's there to make all the moonshiners toe the line and make their payments to his boss or he's there to kill them and shut down their operations. All of the shiners in the county go along, all except for those Bondurant boys (but you knew that, didn't you?). Standing up against Rakes brings to mind that old Japanese proverb, "the nail that sticks out gets hammered hardest". Rakes goes after the Bondurant boys in every way he can, both legally and illegally. It doesn't matter to him how he gets them, as long as he does and even if that means inciting Forrest and Howard by almost beating Jake to death, so be it. Even if that meant terrorizing Forrest's girlfriend Maggie Beauford, played by the lovely Jessica Chastain, then so be it.

Directed by John Hillcoat, who did the bleak The Road back in 2009 and based on the book The Wettest County In The World by Matt Bondurant (no, that is not a coincidence), Lawless is a movie with no real centerpiece. You find yourself rooting for Forrest in the beginning only to end up cheering for Jake in the end. The movie see-saws and I always considered that flawed filmaking, but this movie has such powerful performances that you don't mind that. This movie is also about transformation. You watch Forrest transform from the menacing presence to a loving and gentle man, same for Howard. The starkest transformation though belongs to Jake. Where he was once that soft underbelly, Rakes turns him into someone scarier than Forrest and it's mesmerising to watch.

My biggest problem with this movie is the music. Supposedly the score was done by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, the men behind the music of The Road and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The music was sort of avant garde or to be blunt, it was different. Nothing compelling and it didn't help the films along, same goes with this film. Such powerful performance's deserved a powerful score and instead you get disappointing and forgettable accompaniment. Other than that, Lawless is a should see. You will NOT be wasting your money, I assure you and I'll see you at the theater.