Lawless Reviews
Top CriticIt'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.
The Patriot Ledger
Hillcoat exhausts every gangster cliché he can cram into a would-be epic distilling hooch, cooch and putsch into a diluted Scorsese mash.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
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
Slant Magazine
Lawless is a compellingly nutty and uneven gangster film.
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
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
2UE That Movie Show
Lawless is by no means a bad film, it's just a recipe with great ingredients that didn't fully deliver.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Shotgun Critic
As you'd expect from that kind of artistic pedigree, 'Lawless' is a well-oiled production that knows exactly what kind of film it is: a classic revenge tragedy with Tommy-guns and fiddles in the dustbowl South.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/5
The Sun Herald
John Hillcoat's tale of Prohibition bootleggers boasts excellent performances, but doesn't feel as focused or nuanced as The Proposition (his last collaboration with Cave).
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
