Lawless 2012

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. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Lawless tries to be flawless; as a movie, it's often listless - lifeless. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: This isn't to say that there's not enough here, but just don't look for it all to add up. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Mr. Hardy mostly grunts, growls and ribbits, occasionally interrupting his angry bullfrog impersonation to deliver down-home bromides that make him sound like Toby Keith choking on a Cheeto. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: You can sense the filth, and smell the rust, and feel the ingrained poverty that might well convince a family of survivors (of World War I and the Spanish flu) to make their fortune selling moonshine to their neighbors. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: A character study that puts its focus on its least sympathetic characters. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Hillcoat's ultra-violent drama plays like a hot, sweaty, delusional fever dream and is similarly fitful. It can be visceral and operatic, beautiful and brutal but also slow and overlong. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: A thoroughly familiar-but flavorful and rousing-shoot-'em-up set among Prohibition bootleggers. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Lawless is filled with forbidding shadows and verdant abundance, contrasting the indifference of nature with the violence of the humanity within it. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: At its core, this is a film about men doing violence to men. And they do plenty of it. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: Much of the action may be nearly as grim as in director John Hillcoat's previous feature, "The Road" - "Lawless" is very bloody - but the scenery and production design are a whole lot nicer. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Fans of The Proposition will have to settle for sublimely evil performances by Gary Oldman (as a murderous rival) and Guy Pearce (as a government agent) and a large quotient of gut-wrenching violence. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: This should've been a really good picture, especially with Hillcoat's crack ensemble. Instead it's a stilted battle waged between the material and the interpreters. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Lawless turns the literary tone of its source novel into something faster, leaner and more populist. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Lawless" is a sprawling story of dirt road bloodlines and stubbornness, solid but a bit out of control. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: Based on a novel by Dallas-based Matt Bondurant about his family's real-life bootlegging past, it's a violent, brooding portrait of brotherhood in trying times. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Hardy's presence is compelling, but the film comes fully alive only when it turns bloody. At those moments, though, it has the kick of a mule. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: A great deal of rowdy, crowd-pleasing fun, and there ain't nothin' wrong with that. Read more

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. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Turns the Virginia hills of the early 1930s into just another backdrop for a clockwork succession of perfunctorily filmed showdowns and shootouts. Read more

David Thomson, The New Republic: It's slight and casual to the point of laziness, but it's straight fun, done with knowledge and a laconic pleasure. You could do far worse. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Historical authenticity and pulp fiction blend nicely in "Lawless," a lush-looking drama full of blazing Tommy guns, fast jalopies, brutish men and delicate women. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: The center of narrative gravity is hard to locate; for whom are we rooting, and does anything really ripple outward from this nasty local fight? Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Ultimately, "Lawless" is just another gangster movie, and not a very good one ... Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, NPR: [Lawless] is both too obvious and not direct enough, and its shapelessness dilutes its power. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: The action is, overall, as exciting as the primary performances are impressive. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: At least a third of its two hours is devoted to "arty'' shots of landscapes. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A story of entrepreneurship, of family, of fighting for one's rights - the right to make white lightning, and money. It's as American as apple pie. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is a well-made movie that deserves a higher profile than it is being accorded. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Bad-ass from start to finish. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I can only admire this film's craftsmanship and acting, and regret its failure to rise above them. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: With a dynamite cast, an iconic screenwriter in rocker Nick Cave and an Aussie director in John Hillcoat, you assume a new classic. What you get is an ambitious try. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "Lawless" offers a compelling, gruesome and instructive time-travel exercise. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Hillcoat and Cave give us more than an action story. They create a world. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: There's something at the movie's heart that remains flimsy and inauthentic, a kid in his older brother's ill-fitting shoes. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Shia LaBeouf plays young Jack Bondurant with more conviction and skill than we have seen before. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The fire that stokes the story is violence. Yet despite some gruesome images and the psychotic fervor of Rakes, it's a frustratingly slow boil. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: All slicked up but mostly firing blanks, John Hillcoat's Prohibition-era western Lawless looks and sounds great but fails to tell a compelling story. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Hardy's an exceptional actor, and LaBeouf has a certain fizzy charisma, but they each twang embarrassingly every time they have a sentence or two to utter, and not even in a way that matches. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: It makes for an oddly comfy experience considering the death and hurt at the film's core. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: Intermittently intriguing, wildly uneven. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The unflinching slicing and dicing is viscerally brutal, but without sufficient character development Lawless simply feels lifeless. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: The narrative often seems at odds with the director's pictorialism, trudging when it should be striding toward the climax, isolating the performers on their marks when everything depends on taut blood-ties interconnection. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: An inescapable sense of "so what?" sets in early with "Lawless," almost as soon as Shia LaBeouf begins his lackluster opening narration. Read more