“Lawless” and the GOP’s fever dream of the past

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:47:00 +0000

“Lawless” is a problem picture, as they say in Hollywood. It’s been through three titles during its lengthy post-production wait for distribution, and despite a cast loaded with talent and hotness (Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska) is now being dumped on the last weekend of summer, on the presumption that it’s a flop. But much of the problem with this amped-up fable of Depression-era bootlegging in rural Virginia, I think, is the American problem with our own history.

It’s worth noting that this movie wasn’t made by Americans at all, but by a pair of Australians, director John Hillcoat and screenwriter, songwriter and legendary post-punk singer Nick Cave. (They also made “The Proposition,” a similar but more successful “Aussie western.”) Cave’s screenplay takes Matt Bondurant’s historical novel “The Wettest County in the World,” largely based on the exploits of Bondurant’s own grandfather and great-uncles, and treats it as a canvas for Cave’s obsessively Biblical or Faulknerian treatment of American themes. Elevating the story to a grotesque or mythic plane works well at some points and less well at others, but Hillcoat never firmly commits to either documentary-style realism or Coen brothers-style Grand Guignol, and tries to split the difference.

Salon.com > Lawless

“Lawless” and the GOP’s fever dream of the past