LAWLESS
Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain Dir: John Hillcoat

The last collaboration between director Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave was the brutally impressive tale of early Australia The Proposition. This time, with a story of bootleggers in the wilds of 1930s Virginia they lighten things up a bit, though there are still frequent outbursts of violence.
Based on a book about the 'true” exploits of the Bondurant brothers (Le Beouf being the youngster, Hardy the taciturn leader) it pits them against both gangsters and the law, the former in the shape of Gary Oldman, the latter embodied by Guy Peace in possibly his most eccentric turn to date, a fascinating – if slightly over-the-top – portrait of repressed psychosis.
Unsurprisingly the brothers won't bow to anyone and never back down from a fight. The hills are alive with the sound of moonshine and the period and surly Southern self-reliance are nicely evoked. The film seems to be looking for a greater resonance, wanting to say something about America and her 'freedoms”, but ends up as more of a rip roaring yarn and is none the worse for it. Hardy again excels and even La Beouf is less irritating than usual. I liked it.

The Courier opens in vertiginous fashion with Jeffrey Dean Morgan's titular employee – the best in the business! - rescuing a kidnapped woman from the top of a rollercoaster. Then he's given 60 hours to deliver a suitcase to the elusive 'Evil Sivle”, $1 million if he finds him, dead family if he fails. Why? Who knows. In fact, all we know about Evil Sivle is that he's evil and that the more the courier looks for him the more the bodies pile up. But the filmmakers have loftier ambitions and the final third delivers increasing weirdness, time jumps and twists. Unfortunately it's almost completely botched, the pacing off, the story confusing and plot threads left hanging.

Fire with Fire may win no prizes for originality but it's a slick good-looking action thriller that generally avoids insulting its audience's intelligence. Think Contraband or a film from the late Tony Scott. In it Josh Duhamel's fire-fighter witnesses a convenience store murder committed by a fearsome white supremacist crime boss (Vincent D'Onofrio). He agrees to testify and goes into witness protection but, realising that the bad guys aren't going to stop, he goes all vigilante (hence the title). Duhamel struggles convincingly as the everyman hero, D'Onofrio brings a real brutality to proceedings and Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson are solid in smaller roles.

I missed this when it came out last year but, for anyone with an interest in the man who spread reggae throughout the world it is well worthwhile viewing. Marley, originally slated as another Martin Scorsese project, ended up in the hands of Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin MacDonald and he makes a fine job of things. There's nothing here to surprise aficionados but the interview subjects, from Bunny Wailer onwards, are entertaining and it's a good overview of the man's life, philosophy and extraordinary achievements. You could complain that it never really goes deep enough and doesn't feature enough music but, as a primer, this covers most of the bases.

Cosmopolis deeply divided audiences, as you would expect from a film that for most of its running time features Robert Pattinson sitting in the back of a limo. I should add that it's a really fantastic limo – art designed into a hermetically sealed black wonder – and that he doesn't just sit: he talks to visitors, has sex, has a medical examination and more. He's a jaded billionaire, heading downtown for a haircut through Occupy-type riots while gambling his fortune on the future of the Chinese yuan. Directed by David Cronenberg from a novel by Don Delillo this is pretty austere stuff but I enjoyed it immensely: challenging and oddly funny (in a deadpan way).