From the director of ‘The Road’, comes this prohibition-set drama following the lives of three brothers running a bootlegging business. Refusing to allocate a portion of their earnings to the corrupt authorities earns them the wrath of ‘special agent’ Charlie Rakes (played by an unrecognisable Guy Pearce) whose flagrant disregard for the law sees tensions rise between the law force and the locals.
There are a lot of different narrative strands at work here, but the plot tends to alternate between brooding elder brother Forest Bondurant (Tom Hardy) and runt of the litter youngest brother Jack (Shia LaBeouf) and they are arguable front runners in a cast of superb actors. As the enigmatic Forest, the unspoken head of the household, Hardy possesses an almost ageless quality, which makes him unbelievably interesting to watch. Forest is a character steeped in mystery and legend and Hillcoat cleverly plays on this through a combination of camera work and Hardy’s intuitive performance.
Hardy is shot in such a way as to emphasise his formidable size and youthful good looks yet he carries himself with a kind of weary fatigue and communicates through a series of unintelligible grunts, making it impossible to deduce his age and contributing to the mystical aura that surrounds him. Parts of his dialogue are lost in the garbled thickness of his southern drawl, but you almost get the sense that you don’t need to understand him, as his hulking physicality is such an imposing presence.
Despite the attention paid to Jack’s coming of age as he attempts to ape his brothers and become more involved in the family business, the viewer can’t help but pine for Hardy’s presence when he is off-screen. This is not to discount LaBeouf’s fine portrayal of youngest brother Frank; he turns in a very capable performance and this film is as much a coming of age story as it is an insight into the hardships of living through the Depression. However, Hardy is an acting beast and LaBeouf is smart to simply compliment his performance rather than try to counter it. You get a real sense of the brotherly camaraderie between them and Hillcoat does a superb job of communicating this without obvious exposition, instead opting to use simple yet effective visual imagery.
READ MORE: http://www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/lawless-reviewed-dark-haunting-with-flawless-lead-performances/
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