Hardy's surpassing talent wasted on a long drawn out boring film

Rating: 6/10 (7 January 2016)

It goes without saying that Hardy's performance is out of this world in this film. He majestically masters the dual role of the Kray brothers, squandering nonetheless and much to my regret a wealth of talent against the backdrop of a story which I personally found boring and rather long drawn-out. The beginning seemed promising, but the initial effervescence started to fizzle out miserably when we are peppered with a series of isolated occurrences randomly depicting the Kray's wrongdoings that barely have interconnection or worse still some of them are lacking in completion. The film is also romantic to a fault which contributes to defeating the purpose of the violent and savage nuance that was expected of it. It seems to center on Ronnie's romance with Frances, rather than focusing more on the two brothers' ruffianly and reckless misdeeds. Apart from Tom Hardy's superb performance, the film is not something exciting to write home about; primarily because it doesn't produce, at least in me, the desired exhilarating results of having watched an entertaining epic film.