Reviewing Lawless Without Having Seen It

Most of the time, when I do my “Reviewing X Without Having Seen It” reviews, I actually have some idea of what the movie is about. Lawless is not one of those times. So I did all the research I needed to in order to write this piece and looked at the film’s theatrical poster. Yep, that’s all it takes. At this point, I’m that damn good. And, with my exhaustive research concluded, I can tell you definitively this film is going to suck. Why? Two reasons: It’s trying to ooze sex appeal but is set in an era when people didn’t shave their genitals and it’s a gangster movie not about dagos.

I’ll tackle the grooming problem first: I don’t know how people had sex before 1995. It must have seemed so…puffy? Just clumps of hair battering against other clumps of hair, like Captain Caveman wrestling his twin brother. And forget oral. Have you ever seen the floor of a barber shop? I’d sooner run my tongue across that. I thank God every day I live in an era where I can bury my face between a woman’s legs and it doesn’t look like I’m doing an impression of Castro. So forgive me if I don’t get excited by the thought of one or both of the jagoffs in Lawless‘ poster finally getting that ginger to expose the Jiffy Pop bush she must have brewing under her old-timey panties. Yech.

The other problem with Lawless? NO ONE LIKES NON-ITALIAN GANGSTERS. That’s just a fact. “But John,” you might snivel if foolish enough to question my absolute authority, “what about Scarface?” Scarface is the exception that proves my rule. You know why everyone likes that movie? Because they got Italians to play the Hispanics. Same with Carlito’s Way. I’m not sure why, but Latinos on screen just don’t intimidate. I see a brown face, my first though is “How long until the commercial for Sábado Gigante?” Italians just have that menacing air about them. They’re like wolverines–diminutive, covered in fur and able to overpower foes many times their size.

Well, white gangsters are even less scary than Spanish ones. I hear a white guy screaming, I’m assuming it’s because the Starbucks girl fucked up his coffee, not because he’s telling everyone in the bank to get down. I’m a white guy, and I’ve come to terms with it. Sane, gun-violence-with-a-purpose is no longer our niche. Now, if you want to make a movie about a guy who snaps and shoot a bunch of people, then whitey is your go-to. Think Falling Down; that’s the white man utilized to his gun-toting fullest potential.

Skip Lawless. It comes off like a poor man’s Boardwalk Empire. And the only thing that got me watching that was Paz de la Huerta pulling out her teets every 30 seconds long enough to distract me from her creepy, solid-black gerbil eyeballs.