Touches You

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This could have been such a great film, but a combination of factors made it fall over.The prohibition era is well trodden in film but as far as I can recall I've never seen this aspect of it explored. Then you've got Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, arguably three of the best actors around. This should have added up to a winning combo, at the very least better than average. Instead we get an uneven mess of storytelling, some terrible dialogue, uneven pacing and way, way WAY too much Shia. Oh my gosh that guy sucks and it felt like he was in every scene. Tom Hardy has a tendency to a mumbling, grunting acting style, which a lot of people don't like, but personally I love the guy and found myself eagerly waiting for more of his scenes. Instead we get Shia, Shia, and more Shia. While Tom gets to lurk in t he background fobbed off with a tacked on love story. What were they thinking? There are some flashes of brilliance. The throat cutting scene. Guy Pearce's compelling presence. The fabulously haunting church music (in a scene once again ruined by Shia) which make this experience all the more frustrating. It could have been so good.

This was my first Tom Hardy experience, he's truly a revelation, he took a normal role and transformed it. He is the new Daniel Day Lewis, his intensity and strangeness infuses every scene he's in, he changes the cadence and meaning of most things in the movie. Weirdly, I felt like I had always seen him, like a song you really like but have never heard before and to be clear, this is not some fanboy thing - his walk, how he entered a scene, how he responds to other characters, he seems larger than life and he was acting with some pretty capable people. The music in the movie was great too, the movie itself was pretty black and white routine but worth the price of admission. Hardy's subsequent work on the Revenant, (which I hated) was also amazing as was his work on Mad Max. In the latter, he worked so well with Cherlize Theron who also is a fearless actor and ironically or maybe because of Hardy's intensity, she refused to have anything to do with him off the set. He's the real thing, when you see such talent, even if you know nothing about acting you realize you are in the presence of genius.

Set in Depression-era Franklin County, Virginia, a trio of bootlegging brothers are threatened by a new special deputy and other authorities angling for a cut of their profits. When was the last time that you saw Shia LaBeouf in a great movie? You just found it. Lawless has some of the best performances from some particular actors such as Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jason Clarke, Shia LaBeouf and Jessica Chastain as for Gary Oldman is one of the problems with this film since his role is about 5 minutes and that is a problem also there are some dumb moments such as Shia throwing up on his shoes as Mia Wasikowska was trying to clean his feet and the film has the first acting being a Tom Hardy movie and the second act being a Shia LaBeouf film which it works cause his role as Jack needs to grow on you and they did that pretty well and Lawless is a pretty well damn film 9/10.

Good, but not great, and more than a little disappointing. Had heaps of potential: the (true) story was incredibly interesting. However, that may be the problem - there is too much to cram into a 2-hour movie. A mini-series may the more ideal medium. Certain events get glossed over. Some development of some of the more interesting sub-plots is required. Plus, we are lead down a few blind-alleys, plot-wise. The pacing is uneven too - better direction and editing was required. This said, it is entertaining. The movie is suspenseful and exciting and has a degree of grittiness. With more time and a better director, it could have been a great crime-drama.Shia LaBeouf is miscast in the lead role - he just doesn't have the presence or maturity for the role. Still, he doesn't do too badly and manages to limit the damage. Remaining cast - Tom Hardy, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska - are excellent. Tom Hardy is the pick of the bunch, as Forrest Bondurant.Most underutilised member of the cast must go to Gary Oldman. His character was a very interesting one, and deserved his own movie, but Oldman, for all his genius as an actor, only gets 5 minutes of screen time.Good soundtrack, the standout track being a hillbilly version of The Velvet Underground's "White Light, White Heat".