Lawless (2012)

Critic Reviews

• Eric D. Snider, Film.com

  A great deal of rowdy, crowd-pleasing fun, and there ain't nothin' wrong with that.

• Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

  Every festival has the right to its duds, but I was surprised when I suddenly realized that Lawless isn't a bad Cannes film - it's a bad Sundance film.

• Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

  Lawless tries to be flawless; as a movie, it's often listless - lifeless.

• David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

  Fueled by a brooding sense of dread, visceral bursts of violence, potent atmosphere and some juicy character portraits from a robust cast.

• Jonathan Crocker, Digital Spy

  You can't shake the feeling that Hillcoat just should have gone for broke with his florid, bloody drama.

• Kimberly Gadette, Doddle

  Blue Ridge Mountain veracity aside, the story's got to have more kick than some two-bit swill that even Ma Barker's Ma wouldn't swallow.

• Fiona Williams, sbs.com.au

  There's 'too much rust in the pipes', but it's still a satisfying cocktail of gore and sentimentality. Just don't expect the top shelf hooch.

• David Fear, Time Out New York

  Intermittently intriguing, wildly uneven.

• Mike D'Angelo, AV Club

  A thoroughly familiar-but flavorful and rousing-shoot-'em-up set among Prohibition bootleggers.

• Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly

  Never-not-fun junk food enlivened by good actors and a thin ghosting of Hollywood-style "relevancy", but only barely enough actual substance to keep the shoot-em-ups interesting.

• Dave Calhoun, Time Out

  It makes for an oddly comfy experience considering the death and hurt at the film's core.

• Guy Lodge, HitFix

  John Hillcoat's brisk, bloody and sharply appointed Prohibition thriller "Lawless" is the most immaculately barbered film in recent memory.

• Adam Woodward, Little White Lies

  Cave and director John Hillcoat work Matt Bondurant's vivid, brutal prose well and, although it won't win anything in Cannes, Lawless is a cut above most mainstream American crime-dramas.

• Drew McWeeny, HitFix

  "Lawless" probably isn't going to send anyone to any awards shows this year, but it is a nice indication that Hillcoat can play more than the one note that he's hammered so hard so far in his work.

• Jeff Bayer, Movies.com

  When you have the chance to see this film in August, pull the damn trigger.

• Mike Goodridge, Screen International

  John Hillcoat's latest movie is a well-paced and entertaining story. But if the film will boost Hillcoat's stock as a commercial director, it is lacking in both the poetry that infused The Proposition and The Road.

• Simon Gallagher, Film School Rejects

  An artfully crafted film with subtle elegance, a moonshine drenched aesthetic and a set of performances that lift it well beyond many other Prohibition stories.

• Jason Solomons, Guardian [UK]

  Star-studded and violent yet empty as a broken whisky bottle.

• Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com

  Hillcoat's stylishly elegant, ultra violent gangster-Western is only sporadically involving, but it's well acted by LaBeouf and Tom Hardy.

• Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

  Hillcoat's film wins its gasps and gulps honestly, but it doesn't remotely strain against the constraints of genre in the same way as last two equally Western-inflected films, The Proposition and The Road.

Read all 20 critic reviews