Lawless Review

After an aggressive marketing campaign, Lawless hits screens with a rather mixed reception. An adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s novel The Wettest County in the World, the film is essentially a “biographical” action/drama that saw itself nominated for 2012 Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or. With a star-studded cast consisting of Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy, and with director John Hillcoat (The Road, The Proposition) at the helm Lawless showed some initial promise. Yet in reality it’s a film that struggles to build and develop its story, characters and themes in an engaging and memorable methodology.

Set during the Prohibition period of the 1930s, the film follows the Bondurant Brothers; Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke) and Jack (Shia LaBeouf), a notorious and brutal family of moonshine bootleggers. However the arrival of Special Agent Charlies Rakes (Guy Pearce) not only puts their illegal operations in trouble, but their lives. Lawless’ main problem is its writing. Nick Cave’s adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s novel lacks substance and depth towards both the film’s characters and the plot. With a story dominated and centred around the three leads, the script fails to establish anything profound about them, their brotherhood or their “war” against Rakes. For the majority of the film, Shia LaBeouf’s character arch takes precedence. Yet even his unoriginal  ascendence from whinny “rookie” to whinny, wannabe macho isn’t a sophistically told or realistically evolved narrative. The introduction of Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska merely serves to further add to some pretty faces to the sagging second act with forgettable romances that fail to develop from Hillcoat’s use of montages. On the whole, apart from the so-called “legend” surrounding Hardy’s character, there’s nothing captivating or engaging with any of the trio or the story, which is a completely no no for a “biographical” tale. 

The sheer talent on offer surprisingly culminates in no actor or actress truly standing out and impressing. Shia LaBeouf puts in his standard delivery in a performance that really requires someone with a lot more screen presence and diversity. Tom Hardy’s rather indistinguishable accent and bashful personality is the most interesting character, yet he suffers from the lacklustre nature of the script. Jason Clarke is forgettable in a role that requires little from him except his fists. Meanwhile Guy Pearce offers the polar opposite from his fellow leads in an over-the-top performance that tries too hard to fill the role of the antagonist in a film consisting of unsympathetic and unpleasant personalities. As for Gary Oldman, his top-billing culminates in approximately 7 minutes of screen time that feels rather pointless in hindsight. Along with the rising stars of Chastain and Wasikowska, its a real shame that the writing dilutes the impact of the entire cast.

Visually Lawless fails to do anything interesting with its period or Virginia setting. Hillcoat’s previous film The Road succeeded in portraying an post-apocalyptic world, desolate and deranged through impressive cinematography and set locations. Here, apart from the extreme violence, that really adds nothing artistically or thematically, Lawless lacks any visual flair, to the point that CGI is even used to enhance pyrotechnics. The environments are recycled in numerous scenes giving Lawless a noticeably small scale. Even the soundtrack can’t escape its generic nature with cliche folk songs, and rather mistimed and mismatched musical accompaniment in various scenes. 

Overall Lawless is a mildly entertaining film that is undoubtably hindered by its writing. It’s a shallow affair that fails to build on its brief moments of intensity and magic, and to take advantage of its very capable cast. Disappointing. 

5/10

RespawningCouch Podcast: Audio Review: Lawless

This week: Jack and a disappointed Nick give their thoughts on big release Lawless.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2D) Review

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2D)

The Transformers franchise never featured heavily in my childhood. I was too young to watch the original TV series and too old to watch the various recent versions. However after being dragged to see the Michael Bay films, it was inevitable that I would have to finish this trilogy (hopefully it stays a trilogy). Bay is a simple director. CGI, explosions, hot women, racial stereotypes and little plot, are trademarks of the money-making director. From the awful Pearl Harbour to the acceptable The Rock, there is little that gets film critics craving to see his next feature. Yet, whilst he fails to gain ‘critical acclaim’, he is continuously scoring at the box office. Transformers: Dark of the Moon will undoubtedly achieve in profits, but fails to fix the flaws of the past two films. The story is rubbish, the acting is terrible, and no amount of CGI and special effects can solve the glaring problems with the picture. 

The plot is based around the Apollo 11 mission back in the 1960s. In the 21 minute communication blackout, a mission was completed to investigate a spaceship crash on the Moon. It turns out the spacecraft was ‘The Ark’ which was the secret weapon that was going to help the Autobots win the War of Cybertron. Meanwhile Sam Witwicky is jobless but feels he has a greater purpose with the Autobots. Its a race against time as both the Decepticons and Autobots attempt to gain control of this ‘weapon’.  The ‘plot’ is weak with problems all over the place and questions that remain unanswered. Wasn’t Cybertron destroyed? There are Transformers on the Moon? What happened to the Rail-gun the army had? How many bloody Transformers are there? Where did all these new Auto-Bots come from? No writer and director is stupid enough to not be aware of the multitude of glaring plot-holes. But Transformers: Dark of the Moon proves wrong as it fails to tie up the loose ends of the previous films and those in this third instalment. Bay attempts to use action set-pieces to hide them, which doesn’t fix the feature but merely creates more questions. But plot isn’t what the majority of the Transformers fans are after. Gunfire, explosion, transforming robots and more explosions have attracted millions to experience Michael Bay’s ‘blockbusters’. What the first Transformers did well was to manage the amount of dialogue and ‘drama’, with ‘sci-fi’ and pure action. The end climax was entertaining and not overzealous, even with the weak plot. In Dark of the Moon, Bay implements more CGI and more explosions, that whilst serves the young audience, get a bit too tired and becomes a grind. 

The CGI is certainly spectacular. The scale of destruction during the never-ending final battle is amazing. Buildings fall down, vehicles explode and Transformers..... transform. Its all impressive but a little too much. The final confrontation goes on forever with various ‘crescendos’ and completely pointless scenes. It becomes a test of patience as Transformers die, people die and character suddenly appear. As well as the constant stream of CGI action, Bay uses slow-motion way too much. We’re not talking ‘Zack Snyder’ levels, but it gets old quickly. Every-time Optimus Prime or Bumble Bee transform, it goes into slow-motion, car jumps are in slow motion, there is even slow motion walking. One scene in particular; where Rosie Huntington-White stands in the middle of the street whilst slow-mo gun-fire and explosions are going off, it is so over-dramatic it’s just stupid. However CGI and special effects don’t make a film, and definitely not a good one. Instead the film attempts to introduce Bay’s understanding of ‘drama’ and ‘comedy’, and it falls flat on its face. John Malkovich and Ken Jeong have been introduced in an attempt to add character and comedic relief. But they both fail terribly. Both are annoying with Malkovich’s role being absolutely pointless, and Jeong acting his usual cringeworthy self. Racist caricatures have been avoided, however stereotypes are still featured: Terence Gibson has a ‘crew’ equipped with military gear, all driving black 4X4s, and has dialogue that includes ‘This is whack!!!’.   

This links into the fact that the acting is dreadful. Good performance such as Frances McDormand’s are few, as we are introduced to so many different characters that fail to be developed and are seemingly unnecessary. Shia LeBeouf is dull and uninspiring as usual. His role consists of screaming, having a hissy-fit and crying. It’s really awkward when the audience is supposed to route for a weak lead character, in amongst giant robots and military folk.  Rosie Huntington-White attempts to take over the romantic role that Megan Fox had in the original two films. She adds little to the plot and her acting can’t be taken seriously. She’s there purely for show, and Bay makes sure of that with endless shots of her ‘curves’. And when she does have a say in the plot, it is far too late, far too obscure and doesn’t make sense. John Turturro needs a new agent and to think about his acting career. And why is Patrick Dempsey in this film?...... he’s poor anyway. The acting isn’t helped by the terrible script that tries to be funny and dramatic. It ends up being obvious and lazy, clearly the special effects came first. 

Overall Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a boring, plot-hole ridden, mess of a film. Bay has attempted to eliminate the mistakes of Revenge of the Fallen, but Dark of the Moon still remains heavily flawed. The script is terribly cliché and lack-lustre, the characters are wooden and fail to be interesting. The action scenes are spectacular but go on for far too long and it has a stupid title for a film. It is inevitable that Dark of the Moon will be successful at the box office, but it is definitely not a good film. While it is better than Revenge of the Fallen, that would hopefully not be a challenge for any sane director and writer. And I guess the film does everything you’d expect from a Transformers film, and that doesn’t rate highly in my opinion. Lets hope that this will be the end of the  awful franchise. 

3/10