After watching this trailer you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Great Depression in America was a blast. Full of action, danger, excitement, explosions and sexy gun battles. Sadly it wasn’t, as the reality looked more like this.

But hey, who cares about gritty realism when Hollywood is in charge. Let’s have a full blown, good old Southern hoedown with added Gary Oldman.

Lawless is directed by John Hillcoat a man responsible for such brilliant films as The Road and The Proposition, and stars a hefty cast consisting of  Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy the aforementioned Gary Oldman, Guy Pierce,  Mia Wasikowska and is based on Matt Bondurant’s novel The Wettest County In The World, which tells the story of  three brothers who find their bootlegging business under threat in Prohibition-era Franklin County, Virginia.

The book was adapted for the screen by none other than all-round mental bastard Nick Cave, a man responsible for the insanely brilliant script for the proposed Gladiator sequel which criminally never saw the light of day thanks to unimaginative movie execs, which included Maximus leading tanks during WWII and even featured the Pentagon. Here’s a small sample of a speech Maximus delivers in the script:

You are students, are you not? Scholars? Learned young men? Then, answer me this: Does Rome stand deep-fixed and deathless as in the time of the great Caesars? No. I think not. Does she prowl the world, hungry and fearless and all-power? Again…I think not. Do the Gods sit mighty and well-pleased in the Heavens and bestow on her, her just rewards? No and again, no…I think not. Rome weeps and this little fish swims in her tears. A fish…a little fish…hidden around an old man’s neck. The earthquakes that have ripped this mighty empire asunder…charge this little fish. The infernal plagues and disease? The hellish pestilence that ravages our land? Charge this little fish… The diabolical rage of the Gods? I say again…CHARGE THIS FISH. And charge the one that wears it! The man here spits n the eyes of the gods themselves! He is the enemy of us all!

F@cking movie execs!