Tom Hardy In Lawless
John Hillcoat believes that his new movie Lawless does have very modern themes running through it.
Lawless is the big screen adaptation of Matt Bondurant's novel The Wettest County In The World and follows the story of the Bondurant brothers during the depression.
But Hillcoat says that the themes of economic issues as well as the war on drugs are still as relevent today as they were back then.
Speaking at a Press Conference for the movie at the Cannes Film Festival the filmmaker said: "I think we're in a time of a lot of instability and insecurity. There's a lot of parallels to today with the economic crisis, the political war on drugs."
"That was the start of serious organised crime and it's been going ever since. I think this sort of feeds into all the things that are going on today."
The movie brings together an all star cast that includes Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman and Jessica Chastain.
The film will battle it our for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was screened over the weekend.
Lawless is released later this year.