Narrative is all messed up, which is too bad

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2016)

By centering this film about an interesting pair of criminals around the Emily Browning character and her narrative, the film is boring, disjointed and uninteresting. Browning herself (and the character as written) basically ruin the film, as the writers attempted to "modernize" a 50-year-old story with "modern" gender perspectives. Why mess with history and ruin the tale? Hardy himself does well enough in the two roles, although the writing really doesn't make the audience care about Ronnie Kray that much. Perhaps that was an impossible task to begin with, of course. Reggie is the only character the audience cares about, and the story is focused enough on him, luckily. However, it should have been presented more from his POV, rather than his wife's. When her narration is edited poorly and ended abruptly with her suicide, the film just doesn't hold itself together well at all. Such as shame.