I watched Lawless over the weekend. It's all over the place, tonally—for example, Hardy plays the same dark and troubled, mumbling character he played in Warrior, while Guy Pearce's dandy character is missing eyebrows, has an exaggerated effete city accent and a thick line shaved down his scalp to accentuate the part in his hair—as if Hillcoat was conflicted about the sort of movie he was making, and even how far over-the-top he was willing to go to sell it—but in its best moments, it briefly escapes cliche and shines as a clever, if highly flawed, dark comedy. Outside of the dragging central plot of Lebouf's character's loss of naivety, it's ultimately a handful of good scenes that don't add up to much more than a whole lot of people getting punched-out with brass knuckles, peppered with a few good laughs here and there.
