Fridae

With The Proposition,  Australian director John Hillcoat and rock musician and writer Nick Cave became a formidable duo on the scene of international film. Drawing from the visual lyricism of Terrence Malick but with a brutality that would not be out of place with the visionary Spaghetti Western directors,  they created the closest to the visual equivalent of reading a Cormac McCarthy novel, of course, which they did adapt in the form of The Road for their follow up.

Lawless, their third film together is an adaptation of Matt Bondurant's The Wettest County in the World, which was a partly reality-based novel about his grandparents who ran a moonshine business in Franklin County, Virginia, during the Depression. The film centres around the Bondurant brothers: Forrest (Tom Hardy), Jack (Shia LaBeouf) and Howard (Jason Clarke) whose shine running business is put in jeopardy by the arrival of a G-Man from Chicago by the name of Charlie Rakes, a foppish, suave and sadistic man with a hint of buried homosexuality, who is basically helping corrupt local officials to cut in on their side of the moonshine market. Then there's the ever-present shadow of the great Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman), the archcriminal that the brothers worship.

Considering that The Proposition was also a story of three brothers, what surprises one about Lawless is how differently the three siblings' relationship is articulated, if at all. The Proposition chose to hinge its entire story about the three outlaw brothers at its heart, but here Lawless instead chooses to focus on the seemingly unkillable eldest brother Forrest, who has believed himself deathless since his survival in World War I and his incredible run of dumb luck since. Howard is the muscle of the group and Jack the more cowardly wannabe ingénue, one who has the sweets on preacher's daughter Bertha Minnix (Mia Wasikowska). Meanwhile, a dancer from Chicago, Maggie Beauford (Jessica Chastain) joins in the brothers' shine running operation.

Their conflict with the law is generally simplistic, a series of confrontations in which one round of violent attacks is met with an equally violent retribution. Despite the gore that these retributions involve, the similarity in intensity throughout this cycle of violence and lack of major escalations renders the buildup rather boring. Pearce though is both the film's most memorable character as well as its weakest link: his foppish exterior and accessories (like a custom golden handgun) seem to have wandered with him in from the operatic excesses of Italian spaghetti Westerns. Pearce while an excellent actor and giving the character just enough depth, the film's tone seems to veer off into a different movie altogether whenever he appears. And two of today's finest young actresses, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska, seem to be wasted as window dressing, whose character arcs never develop into satisfactory payoffs.

Where the film works brilliantly though, is its visuals and mise en scene, bringing to life rural Virginia in the 1930s, and trying its best to recreate its own distinct visual iconography akin to those of photos of that era.  Many background characters are well chosen to look suitably homely (even if the film's stars aren't) and a memorable scene in a church while failing at being as funny as it tries to come off, depicts a Southern Baptist church session that is as alien as it is beautiful.

Lawless is a beautifully shot and well-told yet disappointing film from the men who gave us The Proposition and The Road. Almost as though trying to erase comparisons to The Proposition, Hillcoat and Cave remove the focus on the brothers and try to make it a story of entrepreneurship and antiheroics, but in that aspect creates an emotionally uninvolving piece.