Prohibition was introduced to America
in 1919 and is probably one of the most famous examples of a
large-scale fuck-up in recent history. I fucked up once a few years
ago when I accidentally crafted myself a homemade bomb. My granddad
had just died and left me a gold ring which someone suggested I
should wash. Their reason was that he may have had it on whilst
having a wank... all very plausible, I suppose.
Cleaning newly-deceased granddad spunk
off from jewellery is not something I'm an expert at so I decided to
get creative. I popped the ring into a flask, filled with boiling hot
water and introduced a little washing liquid. I then put on the lid
and shook it to mix the bubbles. The bubbles quickly expanded, the
pressure increased and the flask exploded into tiny pieces like a
watery fucking pipe-bomb. I then had to quickly clean everything
up before my Mum came home- nobody wants to have to tell a parent
that they, “made a bomb whilst trying to clean up dead-granddad's jizz” so I sprang into action. I couldn't vacuum flask
shards because the carpet was too wet so I started to dry it with a
towel. Annoyingly though this just made the washing liquid froth up
like I was at a fucking foam party. Just when I thought I might get away with
it, my hand began to burn. When the flask exploded I'd scolded myself
and within a few minutes the skin from my knuckles had completely
peeled away.
I'm not suggesting that my adventure
into the world of home-made explosives was as stupid as prohibition
but both are clearly moronic situations. I'm not sure why America
decided to ban the selling of alcohol but I bet it's got something to
do with outspoken religious people. As a result of this, the
consumption of booze in certain major cities actually increased and
organised crime became a much larger, powerful threat to the nation.
Like with my bomb incident, somebody decided to fix a non-existent
problem and ended up creating an even stupider situation. I had to go
to the doctors in the end and tell him that I'd tried to make a cup
of tea and instead poured boiling hot water over my hand. I'm sure it
took a lot of professionalism for him to simply not diagnose me as an
'incurable stupid, fucking retard'.
There have been many films over the
years that deal with the organised crime that thrived as a result of
prohibition. One of the most famous is of course The Untouchables
in which Sean Connery played an
Irishman from Scotland and Kevin Costner played a man with all the
charisma of a cardboard dildo. The most recent to be released however
is Lawless which
was directed by John
Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave. Apparently the script was based on
a book if anybody remembers those. They're basically what people were
forced to use instead of televisions before the invention of any
technology whatsoever.
Set
during The Depression, this film tells the true story of three
brothers who earned a living through bootlegging. They were basically
the weed dealers of the 1930's by selling a relatively harmless
product to a public of responsible adults. With Shia LaBeouf as the
youngest brother in their gang, the story is mostly framed by his
desire to be taken seriously and given proper respect. Ironically
that is presumably also why the actor is now appearing in films like
this and featuring naked in pretentiously awful music videos.
Although, if I'd been in Transformers: Dark of the Moon
I'd probably walk around with my cock out crying to Sigur Rรณs
too.
The older of the
three brothers is played by Tom Hardy who mumbles his way through
scenes like a big, pink Hulk. His role here is a matriarchal one, as
like a giant Mummy Bear he watches protectively over his family. In
fact, most of the film's highlights are when he snaps into action and
starts stabbing people in the head and cutting off their bollocks.
His character also wanders the movie refusing to die despite
receiving potentially lethal injuries on several occasions. It's said
in the film that he is an immortal and like Superman or Keith
Richards, it certainly looks that way.
The third brother
played by Jason Clarke is unfortunately not well known enough for his
own story and so simply pops up as a sidekick now and again. If the
film has any problem, it's in the characters that it accidentally
neglects which, as well as Jason Not-so-Famous, also includes Gary
Oldman and Mia Wonderland.
The main antagonist
of Lawless is easily Guy Pearce who minces into the story like
a pantomime psychopath. His mission to enforce prohibition requires
him to stop the bootlegging business of the three brothers which he
attempts to do with extreme force. It's hard not to be instantly
drawn to a villain that seems to be part Harry Callahan and part
Danny LaRue, but Pearce's character represents another of the film's
issues. For the most part, the movie is a fairly grounded
gangster/western with several gritty performances and a clear eye for
period detail. By appearing as a demented member of the Village
People, Pearce's performance appears slightly jarring. Having said
that he does hint towards what he could have done as The Joker if
cast in one of Nolan's Dark Knight movies. As Jeffrey Dahmer
and Michael Barrymore have proved, there is nothing more creepy than
a sinister gay.
If
there was a reason to be excited by Lawless however,
it was in the repairing of Nick Cave and John Hillcoat. The two
previously collaborated on the Aussie western masterpiece, The
Proposition and the end of the
world joyfest The Road, for
which Cave supplied the soundtrack. Being a generally hate
filled
person, I am of course a huge fan of Cave's music which includes such
romanticised lyrics as, “They
found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed,
with a rag in her mouth and a
bullet in her head” and
“I'm
a bad motherfucker, don't you know. And I'll crawl over fifty good
pussies just to get to one fat boys ass hole”.
The
music to Lawless
is
predictably brilliant. Despite being covers of songs from other
artists, it's interesting to hear how a couple of them could easily
fit onto the Pat
Garret and Billy the Kid soundtrack.
Since The
Proposition, it
seems to me that John Hillcoat could be our generation's Sam
Peckinpah and now with Lawless,
this still seems true. Both men make films about struggling
masculinity in a nihilistic world and infuse them with a smothering
sense of melancholia. They also deal with characters who have to bend
their own morality to survive amongst the violence and brutality. I
guess the difference would be that Hillcoat has the taste to allow
his rape scenes to take place off screen. It's not that I'm against
rape being graphically depicted and I do think Straw
Dogs is
a masterpiece. But I watched that scene with a couple of mates once
and one of them squirmed about in an uncomfortable way that suggested
he probably had an erection. Firstly, any film that puts my friends
into heat makes me feel awkward, secondly a graphic rape scene
shouldn't really result in a sweating chubby.
Unfortunately
Lawless
doesn't
quite reach the brilliant heights of The
Road or
its brother film The
Proposition, however
that's not to say it isn't still great. LaBeouf's acting has been
turned up a notch and even if he can't quite match the giants of
Hardy and Oldman he clearly has a good old try. Apparently he's
recently decided to become a method actor which means he's grown a
beard and started sporting crappy looking knitwear whilst out in
public. For Lawless,
being a method actor led him to go out of his way to track down and
drink some actual moonshine. I say that as though it's meant to be
impressive but lets face it, it's really not. Plenty of people have
to get pissed to go to work. I once genuinely found a teacher locked
in a classroom, face down on a desk and with a bottle next to her
drooling face. The only difference between her and LaBeouf is that
he's on a better wage and she was responsible for a class of school
children. In hindsight she could probably grow a better beard than
him too.
Regarding
LaBeouf's character I did actually notice something strange. There
were several occasions when he'd had the shit kicked out of him and
was left bleeding and broken. Presumably this was either for his
character's outlaw ways or simply the actors association with Michael
Bay's mechanical movie bollocks. After leaving the scene a blooded
mess he would arrive at the next one without a fucking mark on him.
Now either this is a rather obvious continuity error or his character
has healing abilities as powerful as Jesus H. Christ. If it's the
latter, then Lawless
is
officially the best Wolverine
prequel
I've ever seen.
Superpowers
aside, the film is unfortunately a little cliched, not really adding
anything new to the genre. It's still a good ride while it lasts
however, and so certainly worth a watch. Highlights include a
character getting his throat slit and Gary Oldman twatting somebody
in the face with a shovel. With the world currently in an economic
shit heap, you could look at the political relevance of a film that
depicts depression-era ingenuity and corruption within the system.
But really who can be fucked doing that with a movie that features a
man getting boiling tar poured over his back. Despite everything
mentioned, I thoroughly enjoyed Lawless
and
that's despite watching it in a cinema surrounded by cunts who
wouldn't shut the fuck up. In fact I think being massively pissed off
with the people there really helped me to enjoy the on-screen
violence. People think that something like The
Road
is depressing because it shows the end of humanity, however after
hearing people talk through Lawless
I
honestly can't think of anything more satisfying.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
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