And the award for toughest movie character to spend the entire movie in a cardigan goes to... Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy). Gee those Bondurant boys are hard to kill....
Lawless is the latest film from John Hillcoat (director) and Nick Cave (writer), who gave us the compelling 'The Proposition' quite a few years ago now. Set in Virginia in the 1920s, the film covers the illegal bootlegging activities of the Bondurant brothers during the prohibition era. It's based on true events of this real family, as told in the book 'The Wettest County in the World' by the grandson of the men featured in this movie. How close the real events are to the movie I'm not sure, but it is a hell of a story.
The Bondurant brothers are Howard (shell shocked after the first World War, he spends his time either in the family business, drunk or carousing), Forrest (both the brain and brawns of the operation) and younger brother Jack (a weak dreamer who wants to play a bigger role in the business). Their moonshine is the best whiskey in town, highly sought after and ripe to be smuggled across state lines into Chicago where the gangsters are inventing organised crime. Probably the thing that separates this movie from the average crime thriller (other than the authentic hillbilly location and accents) is the perspective that these Bondurant boys are invincible, immortal or hard to kill. The boys certainly believe it. So do their local competitors. So does everyone, until a federal deputy (played by Guy Pearce) arrives from Chicago to take down these hillbilly crims who he certainly doesn't believe are immortal. The violence is hard and unflinching (rated R, believe it!) as their enemies try to disprove it. By the end of this movie, will we believe it? I won't spoil it, but it certainly is the theme running through the film that makes it more unique.
Unlike the local authorities who look the other way with the gift of some jars of strong whiskey, the arrival of Special Deputy Rakes looks to be putting a clamp down on the boys activities. Their rivals are certainly giving in to the prohibition situation, but Forrest refuses to bow down. Although Rakes tries to bring the heat, he is frustrated by the inability to find the illegal stills that are hidden in thick bush in the mountains, while the Bondurant's business flourishes when Jack inadvertently manages to bring Chicago city gangster Floyd Banner (a brilliant Gary Oldman who is sadly very under-used) in as a client. But Jack's rampaging ego and naivety put the family and their supporters on a collision course with the law, which escalates in the film's finale. Unfortunately though, the finale was ruined somewhat by a late brainsnap by either the writers or Guy Pearce as his character suddenly tips over from creepy, germophobe psychopathic law enforcer to really weird psycho law ignorer. Thinking over it now, I can see how the distasteful events and lack of ability to shut down these simple folk would push a determined agent with germophobe tendencies into craziness, but in the moment I was thinking "this is a bit too much". However, it is still worth taking the ride.
I enjoyed the permformances of Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain as dancer on the run from Chicago 'noise' Maggie, and Aussie Mia Wasikowska as Jack's innocent love interest Bertha. Tom Hardy is a standout as the quiet yet forceful Forrest, a man who can be charismatic even when communicating in a series of confused grunts, capable of explosive violence despite getting around in a grey floppy cardigan. Shia le Beouf is his usual self - awkward, annoying and a bit of a girl, but it does suit the character. The violence is quite confronting (two young girls left the free screening I attended) but compelling at the same time. I found it to have a very dream like quality that pulls you into movie land and makes you believe that these guys think it is cool to be a dangerous outlaw even though your number could be up any time. Since my dreams are occasionally violent, heightened and like a movie, I liked it. I like it more the more I think about it. It seems to be a perfect depiction of the failure of Prohibition, which was designed primarily to reduce crime but actually increased crime. According to the Wikipedia page, in a study of over 30 major U.S cities during the prohibition years of 1920 and 1921, the number of crimes increased by 24%. Additionally, theft and burglaries increased by 9%, homicide by 12.7%, assaults and battery rose by 13%, drug addiction by 44.6% and police department costs rose by 11.4%. This move will show you why!
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