Lawless

Well, I'm definitely going to be having nice Tom Hardy dreams tonight! Lawless was amazing!

And no, I'm not just saying that because Tom is in it. Honestly :p

Lawless takes place in Franklin, Virginia in the early 1930's and is based on the true story (although, I'm not sure how much is actually true and how much they made up for the movie) of the Bondurant brothers- Forrest (Tom Hardy), Howard (Jason Clarke), and the youngest Jack (Shia LaBeouf), who run a pretty successful moonshining buisness. Of course, in comes a deputy from Chicago by the name of Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce, who is a good looking guy but boy does he go ugly for this role) who, as he says in the movie, makes their life a living hell. There's plenty of awesome shoot outs of course. But also in the movie two relationships develop- one between Forrest and Maggie(Jessica Chastain, her character is a former dancer who you can tell has a rough past) and the other between Jack and a quiet preacher's daughter named Bertha (Mia Wasikowska).

The director of Lawless is John Hillcoat (who also directed The Road). He, along with the rest of the crew, did a great job of getting the look of the period right. You really felt like you were in the 1930's. The soundtrack (consisting of some really good country music. I highly recommend it.) fit perfectly. I also have to give major credit to John Hillcoat for makinga Shia LaBeouf performance tolerable for me.

Speaking of performances, I'd have to say that was the best part of the movie. Of course I have to start with Tom Hardy :) I'm so happy he's finally getting the recognition he deserves. What a truly talented actor. His performance as Forrest was unbelievable. Forrest is this tough character that you wouldn't want to mess with, but at the same time you can tell he truly cares about his brothers and Maggie and would do anything to protect them. I also thought he and Jessica had amazing chemistry. If Tom wasn't already engaged, I'd say he and Jessica would make a great couple. The relationship between Forrest and Maggie was very well developed, even though it starts out slow. At one point I felt like shouting at the screen "Just hookup already!". There were these little moments between their two characters that just made my hear melt :)

Guy Pearce is very convincing as the villain. His character is so sleazy and evil. You know things are going to turn ugly whenever he appears on the screen.

The great Gary Oldman is also in this. He plays a gangster named Floyd Banner. Just to warn you, the trailers are a little misleading. Gary is only in this for maybe 10 minutes total.

Another thing I should probably warn you about- this movie is extremely violent. It didn't really bother me too much, although I must admit I had to look away from the screen more than once.

For the longest time tonight, I debated giving Lawless a 9.5. Simply because Shia the douchebag is in it and I can't stand him. Especially after all the crap he pulled on the set of this movie. I don't feel like getting into the details right now, but if you're interested I'm sure you can google it. Anyway, the more I thought about what an overall great movie this was and the fact that I'm a huge Tom Hardy fan, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

My Rating: 10/10