Prohibition era stories have been done quite a bit by Hollywood. Gangsters in suits with semi-automatics in hand, bullets and blood lining the streets of New York and Chicago, and square-jawed lawmen chasing down thugs from speak-easies to back alleys. There has almost been a romantic quality that has underlined these movies, which most often are marked with severe brutality. Filmmakers and moviegoers alike have held an affinity for these stories and have watched with different rooting interests as the system and its laws crash down on the men peddling their bootleg moonshine.

Lawless is the latest entry into this sub genre although it takes the conventions of this kind of narrative and flips it on its head. Like

Maggie Beauford, the story escapes the mean streets of the inner city for the rural rolling hills of Virginia to a town run by the immortal Bondurant brothers. When the state sends crooked lawmen to town to take control of the bootlegging, a back woods brouhaha begins to brew.