Set in Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, a bootlegging gang is threatened by a new deputy and other authorities who want a cut of their profits.
If you treat Lawless as an eccentric – and beautifully shot – piece of moonshine, chances are you won’t be disappointed. This is a high-proof product, and some of its performances are intoxicating. But the plotting is also rougher than a jar of sourmash.
A bit of a stinker.
Promises much but delivers less than one hopes.
There’s fun to be had here, largely from the supporting cast.
Lawless is extremely well made, stylish and evocative of the era and it’s far from chew-your-knuckles dull. However, it’s artistic pretensions fail to jazz up what is a very familiar and straightforward story.
The film is very strong on place – wonderful shots of the hills aglow with the lights of illegal stills – but feeble on plot and plausibility.
A brutal western killfest.
What a disappointment.
John Hillcoat’s film packs a hefty punch.
The violence is gruesome, and perpetual, but the whole thing leaves nothing behind but a moonshine hangover.
An uneven mix of impressively executed, violent clichés about good ol’ boys defending the American right to flout the law.
Lawless is predictable when it ought to be startling.
More than a little indebted to Bonnie and Clyde, it's a slow, painterly movie with sudden, sustained outbursts of violence.
Stylish and savage, but nothing you haven’t seen before. Lawless is something of a blunt instrument but seductive nonetheless.
My 'Lawless' family
Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf and Jason Clarke: the actors playing the Bondurant brothers in Lawless
Jessica Chastain: 'In Lawless, my character Maggie is always moving foward'.
'We discovered Grandpa Jack had a dark history'
Nick Cave: 'Lawless is not so much a true story as a true myth'.
How Prohibition backfired and gave America an era of gangsters and speakeasies.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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