Screenrush Guide to the 2012 Festival de Cannes

***FIRST REVIEWS***

The Guardian: 'John Hillcoat's moonshine drama looks handsome but its cocktail of violence and sentimentality sticks in the throat' **

Time Out: 'There's little in 'Lawless' – a more mainstream experience than 'The Proposition' – to upset a romantic vision of the Bondurants' lives and experiences.' ***

The Hollywood Reporter: 'If Lawless doesn’t achieve the mythic dimensions of the truly great outlaw and gangster movies, it is a highly entertaining tale set in a vivid milieu, told with style and populated by a terrific ensemble. For those of us who are suckers for blood-soaked American crime sagas from that era, those merits will be plenty.' ****

Screen Daily: 'Well-paced and entertaining story of bootlegging in 1931 Virginia, skillfully adapted by Nick Cave from Matt Bondurant's 2008 novel [...] But if the film will boost Hillcoat’s stock as a commercial director, it is lacking in both the poetry that infused The Proposition and The Road and the mythic quality of many other retro ‘30s gangster pictures from Bonnie and Clyde to The Untouchables' ***

The Daily Telegraph: 'Hillcoat's film wins its gasps and gulps honestly, but it doesn't remotely strain against the constraints of genre in the same way as last two equally Western-inflected films, The Proposition and The Road. As titles go, Lawless is a good one, but it could hardly be less appropriate.' ***

Variety: 'Redolent of Hillcoat's previous collaborations with musician-screenwriter Nick Cave, this classy genre piece doesn't quite leave an emotional burn in the gut the way "The Proposition" did, but for those with a strong stomach for onscreen violence, it will hit the spot'

Lawless is another film that’s had a confusing last minute name-change (see Killing Them Softly). Originally titled The Wettest County, Lawless is further confused by the upcoming Terrence Malick film of the same title starring Ryan Gosling. John Hillcoat's Lawless is written by rock star and fellow veteran of the hauntingly violent western The Proposition Nick Cave, is set in depression-era Virginia and focuses on a gang of bootleggers whose operations are threatened when the authorities try to take a cut of their profits. Based on a historical novel by Matt Bondurant about the real life experiences of his own grandfather and great uncles, Lawless stars Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke as the moonshine manufacturing Bondurant brothers and also features an all star cast including Gary Oldman as the gangster Floyd Banner and Guy Pearce as a local law enforcement officer as well as the omnipresent Jessica Chastain. Mia Wasikowska also stars as Jack Bondurant (LaBeouf)’s love interest.

Readers of The Wettest Country in the World will know that the lyrical prose and compelling tale of the Great Franklin County Moonshine Conspiracy emphasized the violent, brutal and grotesque nature of the business which many critics warned could upset readers of delicate sensibilities, so we can safely say that this is not a movie for children. It is however Hillcoat’s first film to be selected for Cannes and follows on from the Australian’s previous highly regarded adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic pot-boiler The Road, which itself was not so easy to watch. That said, we’ll be at the front of the line for what’s sure to be a gripping couple of hours.