Dos Homens Sem Lei

No outro dia, contava com tal experiência dos Inimigos Públicos de Mann, e não a recebi. Hillcoat com Cave e um monte de caras de atores frescas, criaram um filme de gangsters da era da proibição que não tem a ver com epicidade visual (as imagens, por outro lado, são, por razões que não consigo entender, pálidas, sem vida), mas sim com personagens, e mais uma vez, apenas personagens. O ultra vilão, o sangue e a brutalidade, a amizade, a coesão fraterna, o humor negro, a beleza e ternura feminina, o on-the-edge massacre final. Tudo misturado para criar cem por cento de entretenimento de género de um tipo distinto. Entre quatro e cinco. Num ambiente de festival, cinco. (04/07/2012)

I have always liked the genre and the sight of the cast that participated in Lawless was reassuring to me. I wasn't even warned by some of the critical reactions from my favorite reviewers. After watching it, however, I'm joining in with the biggest critics. The effort of the crew to shoot something great cannot be overlooked, but only the set design can be accepted without reservation. The casting turned out to be a disaster. Shia LaBeouf is unremarkable and incredibly annoying with his good-natured face. In the relevant genre, he is unquestionably the most annoying protagonist I can think of. Tom Hardy is established in genre cinema as an actor portraying tough guys, including economy of speech. But here, he manages with just one expression throughout, pushing his performance towards the boundaries of caricature. Guy Pearce, with his terrible overacting, in my opinion, crosses the line in his portrayal of the main villain. The other actors only fulfill the expectations we have of typical characters from the Prohibition era. Jessica Chastain looks beautifully corrupt, and Mia Wasikowska is a pure soul, pleasing at least the male audience. The film has a sluggish pace, occasionally interrupting the viewer's lethargy with a drastic scene. The western scheme that John Hillcoat tries to graft onto his film seems inappropriate and leads to WTF scenes like a bloody reckoning while the entire police force passively watches. To sum it up, the first half is boring, and the second gets on your nerves. Overall impression: 40%. (08/01/2021)

Considering how precisely this movie was made, I missed something that would suck me into the story so that it could blow my mind with each new scene. The actors were great, the shots were amazing, the atmosphere of the first half of the 20th century was awesome, but the entire movie falls on small details. For example, I thought that the ending was a farce. And the entire shoot-out was like children meeting in the sandpit and sling-shooting pebbles at each other.  Nobody knows who hit whom, some people are lying on the ground, some aren’t and some people are faking being hit. Really strange. Considering that this movie is so incredibly realistic, I’m lacking some sort of an eye for scenes that should have been key scenes and they were a flop instead. A shame. (02/12/2013)

A slice of family history that only works in its two hours of runtime when it scores points with good actors and brutal violence, but also forgets the characters. Hardy just grunts and LaBeouf builds an empire out of nothing; it’s got the same feelings as Proposition, copying from everywhere, but with a beautiful signature. (26/09/2012)

Brainless, plotless, gutless. A flat gangster film for beginners, which is the same as counterfeit whiskey, has all the necessary ingredients, but its taste lacks any of the sophistication of the original. If some people are satisfied with Hardy with a single grimace, Pearce acting on the verge of tolerability and LaBeouf the same as always, then by all means. I expect more from a prohibition gangster film than the familiar sentimental macho poses... (03/07/2012)