Even after about a week of mulling it over, I don’t really know how high of a recommendation I’d give Lawless. There’s no doubt that it’s a serviceable film, or an enjoyable experience, but it doesn’t go much further than that. The performances are spectacular, but the majority of the characters are poorly written. “Dry” is the best word I can use to describe it.

With all that being said, I’m not completely upset that I watched it. It’s a Western set in a time past Westerns, much like Rockstar’s stellar game Red Dead Redemption. The villains played by Guy Pearce and Gary Oldman are menacing as hell, and the action scenes are pretty well shot. If this kind of things sounds like a good time to you, then all of the issues I had with it will be nothing more than dust in the wind.

The film follows Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf) and his brothers Howard (Jason Clarke) and Forrest (Tom Hardy) as they bootleg moonshine shortly after the Prohibition era begins, and, after a while, they try to work alongside the mob man Floyd Banner (Gary Oldman). Government agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) believes it is his duty, as a civilized man of Chicago, to wipe out the criminals by whatever means necessary.

The problem does not lie with the story (which is actually based in reality, though the degree of dramatization is difficult to determine), but rather with the characters, specifically Jack.

Shia’s performance is one of his better ones of late, but the character lacks serious common sense. He regularly puts himself in positions of danger, willingly or unwillingly, with no way to defend himself, either because he actually has no weapon or is too much of a coward to ever use one. The amount of times this happens throughout the film is truly staggering.

Howard and Forrest, on the other hand, are far better characters. Hardy continues to flaunt his range of acting talents in each movie, and the perpetually pissed-off and mumbly-grumbly Forrest Bondurant is a ton of fun to watch on screen. Howard is something of a less important character, but he’s no less interesting. It’s a shame he doesn’t have more screen time.

It goes without saying that Gary Oldman is fantastic, but his first appearance in the film is just incredible. Jack is doing errands in town when he sees Floyd and company drive in and whack a competitor. Floyd’s cigar-chomping swagger as he hops out of the car, fires an absurd amount of bullets into the man, and walks back, shifting the cigar around in his mouth without saying a word, is a perfect example of showing and not telling, with Floyd being characterized in just a few seconds with no dialogue.

Guy Pearce’s Charlie is menacing as well. After his slightly silly attempt to play an old man in Prometheus, I got kind of worried about his role in this film, but that was completely unfounded. He’s an evil man on the right side of the law, which just serves to make him all the more terrifying.

The cinematography isn’t incredible, and the color scheme is as you might expect for a Western, meaning that there’s not a whole lot visually speaking that makes the film stand out.

The score serves the film better, fortunately. Composed by the film’s writer Nick Cave, it fits the era perfectly and works well within each scene.

While there’s not a whole lot that’s very noteworthy in Lawless aside from the performances, I think I’d still say that it’s something you should see. At least until The Master and Looper come out, it’s probably the best new thing in theaters right now.