The American gangster movie is an institution that makes heroes from outlaws and let's us all experience the thrills of crime vicariously through some bad men with big guns. But set in deep in Franklin County, Virginia, John Hillcoat's gangster drama Lawless offers a little western flavor. Far from the debonair airs and pinstriped suits of big name gangsters like Al Capone or Bugsy Siegel, the Bondurant brothers ran their own game making moonshine in the rural hills of the South at the height of Prohibition.
While the lackluster title Lawless may not tell you much about this compelling crime drama, The Weinstein Company is overcoming that issue with a new behind-the-scenes featurette. Viewable below courtesy of Yahoo, this clip has Hillcoat along with some of the film's stars including Shia LaBeouf, Jason Clarke, and Guy Pearce discussing what's at the core of this tale, while Matt Bondurant, novelist of the film's source material The Wettest County in the World and descendant of the movie's heroes, reveals his grandfather and granduncles breaking point with local lawmen.
LaBeouf succinctly explains what made bootleggers folk hero figures for Americans: coming from nothing and making bank by creating their own hooch was their unique version of earning the American Dream. For the Bondurant Brothers, it was a good living and a pretty uneventful one as they paid off local cops with a bit of free purchase. But when new authority rolled into town—represented above the Pearce's fiercely dapper deputy—the price to do business became too steep, inciting a blood feud that became local legend. Aside from a few moments in the film that are totally electric in context, this vid also offers a taste of the remarkable soundtrack created by the film's screenwriter and composer Nick Cave.
Lawless is now in theaters; its soundtrack is now available on i-Tunes.
