I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but sometimes when I don’t know if I will watch a movie or not, I look at the actors that are involved. For instance, I took a look at Lawless, a movie I knew just a little bit about, and saw names like Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, and to a lesser extent, Shia LaBeouf, so I decided to take a look. Well, if you follow my way of thinking, there are ways to be disappointed in your choice. The film is about Prohibition-era bootleggers, namely the Bondurant boys, Jack, Forrest, and Howard (LaBeouf, Hardy, and Jason Clarke, respectively). Jack is the runt of the litter, too timid to be of much use when it comes to business. Forrest is the oldest brother, and sort of the brains and leader of their group. And Howard is sort of the muscle, and I liked him a lot, especially after seeing Clarke in Zero Dark Thirty. His co-star, Jessica Chastain, also has a role in the movie, whose actual role in the movie is little more than providing some eye candy, and also becomes the girlfriend of Forrest. The trio is pursued by Charlie Rakes, played by Guy Pearce, who is so into his government job of stopping bootleggers that he’ll kill for it. There are supporting roles from Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland), both of which provide friendship to LaBeouf. Oh, and Gary Oldman is in it too. Not kidding, he’s an afterthought apparently, just providing a bit of motivation for Jack, and doing little else.
I don’t know if this movie really had a lot going on, to be honest with you. There was some alright acting, but nothing ridiculously good worth noting. I’m a fan of Tom Hardy and I like his accent here, but the acting overall was just alright. And I feel like Shia LaBeouf’s character was the one that was supposed to get the most attention, but to me, it was too much about him. A useless romantic side plot did not really help his weak character, and the choices he makes really doesn’t help the Bondurant’s cause. Guy Pearce sounds like he wants to be Christoph Waltz at times, Gary Oldman barely exists in the movie, and I’m not sure how Mia Wasikowska gets DVD cover credit and not Jason Clarke, who I much prefer. Casting and marketing decisions aside, I felt like the movie could have been better with less about Shia LeBeouf’s character and more about the three brothers together. Too often I felt like it was just about the youngest brother. While there was nice growth for the character, I suppose I expected more. Really, there was nothing remarkable about the movie, besides that I like Tom Hardy a lot. I was just too disappointed that Gary Oldman was under-utilized, there was a lot of a useless romantic side story, and Shia LaBeouf, well, he should not have been the main focus, as far as I was concerned. It made it two hours of not a lot going on… not terrible, but nothing remarkable.
Michael Night's Miscellany 