Based on his last three feature films, the Australian director John Hillcoat likes to revel in grime. “The Proposition” was one of the greasiest Westerns ever made, and “The Road” was grungy even by the bleak standards of the Cormac McCarthy source novel.
Now comes “Lawless,” a 1930s drama set in the moonshine hills of Virginia. The title’s an accurate description of the mood here: This is a world of illegal hooch and feuds settled outside the law, and government officials who are both meddling and personally loathsome.
The story’s drawn from a real-life tale of bootlegging brothers, the Bondurants, and their scuffles with outsiders (and each other).
Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy play the two most headstrong brothers: LaBeouf’s overheated Jack is the baby of the brood, so tired of being under the thumb of Forrest (that’s Hardy) that he foolishly concocts a scheme of his own.
Other brother Howard, played by Jason Clarke, tends to drink a lot and explode periodically. This is a very testosterone-oriented movie, but the wimminfolk include Mia Wasikowska (from “Jane Eyre”), as Jack’s well-bred object of courtship, and Jessica Chastain, as a lady from town who catches Forrest’s eye. Her seduction scene with Forrest is an amusing example of his male entrenchment giving way to her curiosity.
Hardy’s performance is yet another example of this inventive actor fashioning something memorable out of thin material. (Among other things, he uses the brim of his fedora as though it were that mouth-mask that obscures his face in “The Dark Knight Rises.”) Hardy gets more out of a simple grunt than many actors wring out of a page of dialogue.
As a director, Hillcoat indulges his actors, so if someone like Guy Pearce wants to get a little crazy, Hillcoat drops the leash and lets him run.
For the record, Pearce’s slimy turn as a slick-haired government man is like a tea party member’s worst nightmare, a truly depraved federal outsider who makes things much worse than they already were.
In short, the movie is all over the place, and we haven’t even mentioned Gary Oldman popping up as a lethal Prohibition-era gangster. But if “Lawless” has little sense of discipline, it certainly keeps you watching.
The script was adapted by musician Nick Cave, based on a nonfiction book written by Jack Bondurant’s grandson. And “Lawless” does capture the sense of a local legend, of characters who’ve become larger than life thanks to the rumors and tall tales passed around the backwoods.
That’s not enough to make it hold together, or conquer its own sense of self-importance. An interesting try, though, and one of these days Hillcoat and Cave are going to nail it.
“Lawless” ½
A grungy 1930s drama set amongst the moonshiners of Prohibition-era Virginia, where bootlegger brothers Tom Hardy and Shia LaBeouf battle rivals, the government, and each other. The movie’s all over the place, but the strong cast helps make it watchable (Jessica Chastain and Guy Pearce are included).
Rated: R for violence, nudity, language.
Showing: Everett Mall, Marysville, Alderwood mall, Monroe, Mountlake Terrace, Woodinville.
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