Why so much hype?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I am known for my ability to sit through horrible movies and find something entertaining about them. Having said that.....this is the only movie in my entire 50 years of life that I have ever paid to see and walked out of the theater without finishing it...I felt so bad about it that I didn't even ask for a refund...felt I deserved the punishment for having the audacity to think that this might be up there with Mad Max: The Road Warrior (which is the genre I assumed they were trying to emulate)Anyone who says this was an excellent movie needs to have their head examined. Horrible script, stupid special effects and just plain bad acting....years later I am surprised at the number of higher level actors that were involved with this.....

Here's yet another of those post-apocalyptic "thrillers" set in the near future following some sort of dreadful catastrophe. As usual this set-up is merely an excuse for producing a cheap movie which can use a series of backgrounds that are tacky, small-scale, and require little expense to put on the screen. The plot in "The Lawless Land" also shows little imagination. The rebel guy falls in love with the Establishment girl and their attempts to get together and enjoy true love are constantly being thwarted by pursuing villains.Amanda Peterson makes a colorless, oh-so-forgettable heroine and Nick Corri (a.k.a. Jsu Garcia) lacks the necessary verve to bring off this kind of role. He has a nude scene in prison when, along with other inmates, he stands facing a wall so he can be dusted with de-lousing powder. This offers us a glimpse of his bare buttocks. He also has a bare-chest scene in which he's strapped face-up on a torture table. An interrogator wearing a surgical mask "zaps" him by politely pressing electrical wires into his nipples. Corri groans (not too loudly) but doesn't reveal any information. This has apparently been going on for three days which makes you wonder: why doesn't the interrogator try moving those wires down to the prisoner's groin? Giving his privates a few high-voltage jolts would likely loosen his tongue, and hearing him squeal like an eight-year-old girl would certainly enliven the proceedings. And where are Harry Hamlin's nipples when you really need them? (Corri's nipples, like his looks, talent, and personality, are decidedly undistinguished.)

The Lawless Land is an underrated and under seen classic. Hard to enjoy at first, one soon comes to realize the creativity and nuances of the movie on repeated viewings. It is an adaptation and improvement on William Shakespeare's classic love story, and using a stroke of subtle directorial genius, gives the sense that it is being narrated through a kind of God's eye view. The acting is effectively removed from the melodrama one would expect from the material in order to provide the viewer with a fascinating story of love in a world where emotion has run dry.