Lawless Reviews
Badass Digest
If only LAWLESS weren't such a superficial endeavor, these parts would add up to a very entertaining whole. As is, the movie is fun while it lasts but forgettable soon after.
Film4
A pumped-up, Hollywood-flavoured neo-Gothic Western delivering knockout performances and raw, corporeal thrills.
Concrete Playground
An impressive Aussie line-up shines in this tale of Prohibition-era bootleggers.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Scene-Stealers.com
Lawless features a unique villain and several great supporting actors, but none of them are able to rise above what is pretty standard crime movie material with nothing really new added to the mix.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Slant Magazine
Lawless is a compellingly nutty and uneven gangster film.
Projection Booth
Appropriately solemn and violent, yet strangely lifeless. I imagine a better film was lost in the editing room, and will hopefully be found on Blu-ray.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
3AW
Every time things heat up, the film down-shifts just long enough to keep you from getting too engaged in the characters, some of whom disappear for reels before popping up again.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Just as he did in his adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Hillcoat creates a very specific and unnerving sense of place in Lawless.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
The Aristocrat
...[Hillcoat] has an ability to capture violence in a way that breaks through a century of cinematic desensitisation - when someone gets hurt in a John Hillcoat film you feel it.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
ABC Radio Brisbane
The strong narrative will keep you interested. The graphic depiction of the violence also gives Lawless a heavy dose of realism.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Crikey
Director John Hillcoat's terrifically acted prohibition era thriller, inspired by the real-life story of the Bondurant brothers, shows how the American dream starting to go wrong - before it even existed.
The Mercury
Don't expect to be carried along by big action and cliched dialogue, Lawless expects you to do some of the work yourself by immersing yourself in this richly textured world.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
Herald Sun (Australia)
The film as a whole is no classic. Between sporadic bursts of very intense violence, there are often drifty, drowsy scenes that struggle to justify their relevance.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
FILMINK (Australia)
This Prohibition-era crime drama boasts bravura performances, unforgettable characters, moments of shocking violence, and enough in-your-face entertainment for three films.
MovieTime, ABC Radio National
In the climax, Hillcoat brings it all back to where it began: as a folk tale. You could read it as a tale of the triumph of the small businessman.
The Standard
A powerful story that packs a punch (plus a few stabbings and shootings).
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Quickflix
Utterly untroubled by any expectation to entertain - or even mildly engage - the audience, Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave take a stroll through 1930s Virginia with the enthusiasm of beleaguered berry-pickers rather than raucous bootleggers.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
The Washingtonian
The cinematic equivalent of a murder ballad: rambling, violent, and more concerned with style and presentation than meaningful character development. Which sounds like a complaint, but in the case of Lawless, is high praise.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7.5/10
