Lawless (2012, John Hillcoat)

This seemingly hackneyed tale of cops-and-robbers blossoms beyond a mere exercise in narrative thrills, focussing on a formalist level of mythic storytelling, a rites of passage telling of a young man's confrontation with worldly evil. Lawless sees director John Hillcoat further materialise himself as a rising auteur and though the film seems over tuned compared to his previous work, there is little to be disappointed with here.

Based on the novel The Wettest County In the World, author Matt Bondurant drew inspiration for his story from his own family history; his grandfather and two brothers and their participation in The Great Moonshine Conspiracy of 1935. Shia LeBeouf plays youngest brother Jack, with Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke as his older more world worn brothers. The three of them make ends meet selling homemade (illegal) liqueur during The Great Depression in Virginia; the brothers are neither greedy nor are they violent unless called upon, they are merely honest and good natured people working a living in a depraved world. Though these characters are capable of great violence, they are not bloodthirsty, though others unfortunately are. Lawless isn't for the faint hearted.

In steps villain of the piece Special Agent Charlie Rakes played by Guy Pierce; Rakes is an incarnation of evil and perhaps the slimiest most detestable villain we're likely to see all year. Working for a crooked politician, his purpose is to press down on the Bondurant brother's business to take a cut of their earnings like everyone else in the county. So begins a war of pride and steadfastness as the brothers, particularly Hardy's 'invincible' Forest, refuses to bow down. As the journey into bloodshed commences so does Jack's personal journey, with LeBeouf providing a very fine assured performance of a young man dragged rather than drawn into a war zone. The adolescent Jack shown in the opening segment who didn't have it in him to kill a farmed pig is soon long forgotten as the horror sets in. The turns in violence that grow throughout and emphasis on family strikes genuine notes of tragedy in a similar manner to that of Jeff Nichols' brilliant Shotgun Diaries.

Survival and the family unit under pressure has formed the basis for Hillcoat's last three features; the father/son relationship of The Road and the three Burns brothers of The Proposition - the film that Lawless relates to most. Like the mythic beast that was Arthur Burns, in Lawless we have a similar figure, albeit a more compassionate one in Forest Bondurant; his presence brings the weight of experience with it, a still fairly young life hardened by the world. Forest, like his damaged veteran brother Howard know that for their young Jack to survive he must be like they are, waiting for the event to finally bring that transition around.

All three of Hillcoat's films take place in brutal landscapes where life has becomes cheap and human bonds tested to lengthy extremes and Lawless is no different, save for a feeling of economy in the storytelling more apparent than the others. Nick Cave's screenplay is a driven and purposeful one set on accomplishing it's goals without pretension, an admirable quality that finds the picture feel rather hemmed in when put against the expansiveness of his more at ease approach for The Proposition. Perhaps it's due to there being more tasks to complete this time round; there is, after all, the love interests for Jack and Forest played by Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain respectively. Then there's the matter of shoehorning Gary Oldman's criminal master Floyd Banner into the picture, a catalytic addition that helps along Jack's transition. Oldman is left with only two major scenes despite his name earning top billing, whether that is satisfactory will depend on the viewer's adoration over one of the world's finest performers. With such a striking screen presence Lawless would only have benefitted from more of Oldman's Banner, in fact the film could have benefited from being longer. At just under two hours it feels rather condensed, sometimes feeling stifled in its developments. Some extra time would have allowed it to unfurl more comfortably, leaving the incredible ensemble of actors feeling more necessary in their involvement.

The fact that Matt Bondurant dug up his family history through the grapevine and old documents provide the film with a touching personal quality of melancholia, a feeling of times past but with an essence of hope due to the story's timeless message of mortality. The film is bathed in a romanticised nostalgia, with Benoit Delhomme's photography producing as if from memory, Jack's memory? Or perhaps our version of memory as we try to imagine life of the past, relying only on films such as these to take us there. The photography heightens the landscape of the film's Virginia setting, a glorious land that probably didn't have trees as luscious as shown, or fields as vast and healthy, but if Jack Bondurant were alive today he would most likely imagine them as so.

As Lawless ascends to levels of ever increasing intensity before giving way to its impressively warm finale, the pieces of understated performances come together to form a rewarding conclusion, revealing how attached we've become to these largely reticent characters. Some well placed moments of humour are also fitting and work well to ease the nerves after an explosive third act. To analyse Lawless on the merit of narrative structure, characterisation, and plausibility would be ill advised as it clearly wasn't the intention of all involved to operate on such regular levels. This is a film playing off mythic conventions with archetypal characters representing more than the individual,  something bigger than all of us yet something unavoidable. For this, it's easier to forgive its imperfections - its clashes of performance and narrow narrative space  - because it's clear these were conscious decisions made to make the film work on a particular level, and it works just fine.

The Road (2009, John Hillcoat)

John Hillcoat's take on Cormac McCarthy's The Road shows the director focussing on family ties once again after 2005's The Proposition - his bloody western of sorts that owed somewhat to not only Conrad's Heart of Darkness but also McCarthy's notorious Blood Meridian. 


The Road is McCarthy's latest offering, charting the love and determining survival of a father/son relationship in a post-apocalyptic setting. The book is utterly gripping, often brutal, at times heart-breaking, and infinitely bleak; McCarthy's work has always lingered on the macabre, his stripped down matter-of-fact approach to is prose has made his writing instantly recognisable and unique in style. His work is often oozing with nihilistic distain for Man's heinous capabilities on others, most prominently in Blood Meridian's unrivalled massacres or the unfathomable degradation in Child Of God. But as a writer he's not a one trick mule at all,  one just has to look at his award winning Border Trilogy to see his ability in writing intricate characters full of longing and love, good things don't always befall on these characters and their stories but McCarthy's acknowledgement of human affection is there none the less. The Road marks the authors most intensely bleak vision but also his most touching, a gripping read if there ever was one that never loses its dreaded atmosphere for a moment. In the Godless world in which it takes place the book shows mankind destroying its remnants,destroying itself from the inside through a young boy we and his father are shown a pure kindness once lost inside us all. Despite only knowing the world in it's destructive state this boy still sees good where others disillusioned from better days gone by cannot. The novel only boasts two main characters with occasional flashbacks to a third - the man's wife, the boy's mother whom he never met. Has this adaptation managed to translate the novel's severity, to convey the gruelling often hopeless survival of our two protagonists? Most definitely, yet despite some slight shortcomings it's hard to imagine such problematic material handled any sharper.

The key to the film was always to aptly create the painfully affecting relationship of father and son; Viggo Mortensen throws himself into his role as he does with all roles, his weak skeletal figure harsh on the eyes, genuinely starvation setting in. Mortensen being exceptional in his role isn't a surprise though is it? The casting of the son is the real revelation here, child performers can often be problematic due to lack of experience and being hard to direct; Kodi Smit-McPhee is beyond impressive, always genuine with never a forced moment. Given the harsh overwhelming premise of the story McPhee is never out of his depth, a rare find and the sturdy foundation of the film keeping it tall and strong. As the two trundle along down the road avoiding occasional cannibal hunters, the everyday survival and  bounding love between the two helps keep the film afloat, a story this drab with only two centralised characters was going to rely entirely on chemistry.


The film divulges several times into segments showing us life before the apocalypse, a man (Mortensen) and his expecting wife (Charlize Theron) at first live in serenity before knowledge of end destroys what they had. Theron's portrayal of a woman crumbling under the pressure of bringing a life into a barren world is both heartbreaking and unnerving, her heart and mind gradually deteriorating, torturing her husband's unconditional love for her. Given slight screen-time Theron makes for a truly memorable figure adding further dramatic weight and tragedy to the already overwhelming desolation. Like the novel Hillcoat's film never hints at what induced the world's end, though environmentalist warnings could easily be drawn from McCarthy's tale he never points fingers at anything, offering slight comments that barely register as clues. The story's lack of desire to explain and judge is a refreshing exclusion keeping the story alive without preaching and needless hindsight.

Javier Aguirresarobe's cinematography delivers a near colourless palette, full of shades of grey as ash still falls from the sky and at times so devoid of colour you'd swear to it being a black & white feature. Nick Cave delivers another fitting score which although less memorable than previous work seems slightly forced at times, the placement of the music is more problematic than the body itself. The use of the often stunning score is often excessive as it looks to draw out emotions from scenes that need help, the paring of Mortensen and McPhee is more than enough alone.


As a whole the film feels slightly streamlined but this is unavoidable given the circumstances. This won't be a problem for those not familiar with the novel but for those that have, you gruel every step of the way with father and son by the end feeling you've been through hell with them, making for a exhausting but cathartic experience. Despite nearly two hours in length this just isn't possible with a longer version not being the answer. The novel's essence is firmly intact  however firmly delivering the same emotions and themes present, though less powerful than its source this adaptation is respectful and   meets expectation. Any detracting remarks could be made to any cinematic rendition of great literary works as something is always lost in the process, but The Road makes for a great filmic achievement whether you're a fan of McCarthy's masterpiece or not.