This movie reminds me of Tombstone - wait, give me a chance to explain. In Tombstone, Kurt Russel is the main character, and his personal life and romance are the focal point of the movie, but Val Kilmer is really the reason to see the movie. Likewise, we are supposed to care about Shia LaBeouf and his girlfriend played by Mia Wasikowska in this movie, but Tom Hardy is the real reason to see it.
Shia LaBeouf is the youngest of three brothers who have built themselves a small moonshine operation. He has little understanding of the consequences of his actions, no idea of how to romance a woman, and is supremely overconfident. In other words, he plays pretty much the same character as he usually plays, and it is entirely possible that this is who he actually is in real life. Shia is not my favorite actor, and he does little to improve my view of him during this film.
Tom Hardy is awesome. He gets to play the most badass character for the movie, and he fills that role perfectly. It's a role I could have seen them casting Vin Diesel in, and I wouldn't have expected Tom to do the job he did. I'm pretty sure the only role I had seen him in was as the clone of Patrick Stewart in Star Trek, and he had about 70 pounds less muscle in that movie. In this movie, he is the heavy who communicates primarily in grunts.
Gary Oldman gets his name on a poster, but I have no idea why. He's on screen for about 3 minutes. It's a good three minutes, but it's not really worth putting him on the poster for the movie. At least Guy Pearce is a main character - he plays the lawman who extorts all of the locals in order for them to ship their moonshine across the county lines. He plays his role well, and that's pretty much what you'd expect.
Like Unforgiven, this movie manages to give the audience a dark and sinister world for the characters to exist in, and it is a nice place to watch the movie play out. Even the lesser characters get a chance to make an impression like Jason Clarke as the insane bulldozer of a brother, Jessica Chastain as the bartender/Tom's girlfriend, and Dane DeHaan as Cricket, the kid who makes the moonshine and also works as the brothers' mechanic on occasion.
Acting was generally great
Direction was fantastic
Editing was good
Story was very good
Dialog was very good
4.75/5