Usually when a movie is “based on a true story,” as Lawless is purported to be, it piques my interest. Fictionalizations of actual events often induce me to learn more about the situation in question. However, because of the relentless unpleasantness of the Depression-era Virginia history displayed in Lawless, I will not be undertaking any further research of the Bondurant family.
The movie and source novel present a trio of brothers in rural Virginia making money by moonshining until organized crime (represented by a “special deputy” played quite flamboyantly by the almost unrecognizable Guy Pearce) decides to horn in the business at its roots. Of the brothers, two (Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke) are ready and able to resort to violence to keep their business going, while the youngest (Shia LaBeouf) is considered a weakling because he abhors violence. Naturally, it is he who will have to avenge the family name in blood. I believe the movie follows events pretty closely; it never seemed otherwise. Which just proves that real life can be just as predictable and heavy-footed as the heightened reality of a movie version.
Movie protagonists need not be heroic — and these men certainly are not — but there should be something that viewers can value about them. Just because they have a code of honor of sorts involving revenge does not make them compelling. I found the characters in John Hillcoat’s film to be tedious and uninspired, beginning with Shia LaBeouf’s wimpy gangster wannabe, who has big dreams but not the ruthlessness or intestinal fortitude needed to bring them to fruition. Tom Hardy has the appropriate gravitas for his role, but I couldn’t understand about one fourth of what he said. Jessica Chastain has little to do as a love interest, but doffs her clothes in one scene.
The violence that is depicted is brutal and graphic, just as it would be in real life, but that doesn’t make it artistic. Perhaps the brothers and their neighbors (also ‘shiners) were truly as doggedly grim as this movie makes them out to be; if so I’m glad I don’t know them, exist in the same generation as them or live anywhere near them. Lawless does remind me of 2010’s Winter’s Bone, another hillbilly movie with characters that I hated. I see no good reason why this movie should have ever been made, nor for it ever to be seen. ☆ 1/2. 6 September 2012.