Film Review | Lawless

Much can be said about films that take ages to truly 'begin' - wasting time as a lot of them do on unnecessary exposition before the story really gets going - but if it has a fundamental flaw, John Hillcoat's Lawless is compromised by assailing us with twists from the word go.

Because it hits the ground running too soon, this based-on-a-true-story Depression-era gangster thriller, penned by singer-songwriter Nick Cave - who previously collaborated with Hillcoat on the superlative 'Australian Western' The Proposition (2005) - fails to establish a suitable atmosphere, so that we're stranded with a bunch of cardboard characters we haven't had time to develop any empathy for, or interest in.

Not that there aren't enough characters to introduce, or plot twists to spin out... and neither is this landscape of Tommy guns, waistcoats and tombstone faced criminals/corrupt cops entirely novel terrain.

Using the historical novel The Wettest County in the world by Matt Bondurant (grandson to Jack Bondurant, one of the protagonists) as his basis, Cave tells the story of the infamous Bondurant brothers - Jack (Shia La Beouf), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clarke) - who made a living from smuggling moonshine in Prohibition-era Virginia, and having recently recruited the striking Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain) as a maid, they use a bar as a cover for their operation.

When their dealings are compromised by the arrival of a corrupt Special Deputy from Chicago, Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce), the brothers find little support in their business associates, and are forced to close ranks as the sadistic Rakes presses on to eradicate them.

Jumping into the fray is the formidable gangster Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), whose allegiance could swing either way and prove a decisive element in the brothers' fate.

Banner is something of hero, too, for Jack Bondurant... whose journey as a young gangster comes to the forefront of the story as he falls in love with a preacher's daughter, Bertha Minnix (Mia Wasikowska), much to her father's chagrin.

The twists come thick and fast, as does the uncompromising period-violence - a trait carried over from The Proposition - but because the story is set in a fictional landscape riddled with clichés and all-too-familiar character arcs (brought to the forefront of popular consciousness once again thanks to hit TV drama Boardwalk Empire), there's very little that's genuinely exciting here.

(Perhaps it's a tragedy of real-life accounts that they end up being even more cartoony than some of their fictional counterparts.)

Which is a shame, because Hillcoat is clearly a skilled director who can evoke historical periods with economic panache, and his cast is certainly cooperative.

Tom Hardy - who seems hell-bent on playing towering, eccentrically-voiced characters - is the hulking, emotionally distant big brother-cum-ringleader, and the highly capable British actor slips into the role (and many a cardigan) with ease, the star fading behind the laconic role.

This may be down to a too-relaxed approach to editing, but in a film that runs for nearly two hours, the fine thesps Gary Oldman and Jessica Chastain don't get to show off their chops as Hardy does. The middle Bondurant brother is also given short shrift - Jason Clarke basically shows up to offer a glorified cameo.

But while the snaky, sexually ambiguous and - it must be said - cartoonishly evil Rakes will doubtlessly sear himself in viewer's minds, thanks to a scenery-chewing performance by Guy Pearce, the biggest surprise here is Shia La Beouf. The Transformers alumni proves that he can actually sustain a character from start to finish, and his sometimes-cocky, sometimes-clueless demeanour, where it would have usually been annoying, works to convey the vulnerable and naïve character, who serves as our guide through the brutal world Hillcoat plunges us into.

In a film that trundles along awkwardly for most of its duration, an appropriately messy and gristly shootout caps things off with some confidence.

You almost forget that what you've just witnessed was a gallery of missed opportunities.