Lawless: other voices

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This article was published 29/08/2012 (5135 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Selected excerpts from reviews of Lawless.

 

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.

— A.O. Scott, New York Times

 

Inauthentic, a movie pulled together by a lot of folks who had no feel for the setting or the story they were telling.

— Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

 

Bad-ass from start to finish.

— Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com

 

A great deal of rowdy, crowd-pleasing fun, and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

— Eric D. Snider, Film.com

 

Every festival has the right to its duds, but I was surprised when I suddenly realized that Lawless isn’t a bad Cannes film — it’s a bad Sundance film.

— Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

 

Embarrassingly fails to illuminate real life.

— Matt Pais, RedEye

 

In Lawless, character wins out amidst the brutal assaults and onslaughts. The Bondurant brothers are outlaws, but they have a strong sense of frontier justice. Just like a good western does.

— Tony Macklin, tonymacklin.net

 

A perfectly viable (and violent) look at moonshiners during Prohibition with a kick-ass soundtrack.

— Edward Douglas, ComingSoon.net

 

Gary Oldman is the only actor who really knocks it out. Unfortunately he’s only in the film for a few minutes.

— Danny Minton, Fort Bend Sun

 

What works about Lawless may get audiences buzzed, but they’ll never feel thrillingly soused.

— Kate Erbland, Boxoffice magazine

 

I’ll recommend Lawless for its gripping violence and batty performances, but not for much else.

— Jordan Hoffman, ScreenCrush

 

Lawless never pretends to be anything more than a revved up period-piece gangster movie. If the movie takes a few too many liberties regarding the survivability of its invincible leading characters, the trespass is forgivable.

— Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

 

Lawless may be full of half-hearted overtures toward depth and emotional complexity, but the film’s prestige sheen is mostly a sham; the real focus here is the irrepressible lure of bad behavior.

— Jesse Cataldo, Slant magazine

 

It’s left to LaBeouf to carry the main weight of the story, and as such your enjoyment of the film will depend on whether you find his brand of wide-eyed earnestness endearing or irritating.

— Niki Boyle, The List

 

There’s no denying it’s a one-note film, but what a lovely note it is.

— Charlie Lyne, Ultra Culture

 

Compiled by Shane Minkin