Lawless

During Prohibition, in the backwoods of Virginia, a family of bootleggers led by an imposing Tom Hardy are pitted against the combined might of county sheriffs, including Guy Pearce's ruthless special deputy. The outcome is very bloody, as one might expect from director John Hillcoat, who made the similarly themed The Proposition. Shia LaBeouf more than holds his own as the least brawny of the moonshine-pedalling brothers, the period detail is painstaking, it's beautifully photographed, and there's a swampy, rootsy score by Nick Cave (who also wrote the screenplay). It's a great shame then, that the storytelling is so muddled, extracting only moderate impact from the escalating mayhem. Ultimately, the film stumbles on clarity, only finding impetus in scenes of down 'n' dirty confrontation between the stars. Hardy is a fierce antihero, well matched against the manic, leather-gloved Pearce, but Hillcoat can't quite bring order to the chaos.