Fans cheer gangster film stars (From Wandsworth Guardian)

Fans cheer gangster film stars

8:05pm Saturday 19th May 2012 in Entertainment News © Press Association 2013

Hundreds of film fans have flooded the streets of Cannes to cheer the cast of new prohibition era film Lawless as they arrived for its premiere.

Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce and Jason Clarke were among the big names to tread the red carpet at the film festival in the French Riviera resort.

Film-lovers lined the streets and whooped and cheered as the stars, including Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska and director John Hillcoat, made their way into the Palais des Festivals to see the movie, due for release in August.

Hillcoat said the film, set in Depression era Virginia, was relevant to today because of the similarities with modern living.

"I think we're in a time of a lot of instability and insecurity," he said. "There's a lot of parallels to today with the economic crisis, the political war on drugs."

The film was written and composed by Nick Cave, former frontman of the Birthday Party and the Bad Seeds.

Cave, who took pictures of the crowds on his mobile phone as he made his way inside for the premiere screening, said he was a fan of Hillcoat's because of the way he deals with brutality in his films.

"It's very brutal, very quick. It's all over very fast and it leaves a huge mess behind," he said. "That was always really kind of exciting to me about the way John deals with violence."