Tom Hardy establishes that he is still one of the best actors of today...the rest of the movie I only wish was as great.

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2015)

"Legend": There is a difference when I say I didn't like a movie and when I'm disappointed in a movie. Sometimes they can go hand in hand, in terms of this film though I can't say that I didn't like it but I am disappointed. I expected more coming from this after seeing the trailers, knowing the talents behind the director and the lead actor as well. I've liked past scripts by Brian Helgeland such as "L.A. Confidential", "Payback", and "Mystic River". And Tom Hardy, I love Hardy. He's become one of my favorite actors from the last several years now. Even in films that I don't much care for, he still turns a great performance. As he certainly does here, carrying this film almost entirely by himself in two very diverse roles. Everyone does a good job and there are even a couple of other standouts in the crowd here, but my problem with this movie is that it has no concrete focus. Yes it does consistently follow the Kray twins, both played by Hardy, but it has no focus or structure for me to hang on to for the whole two hour runtime. I like these characters; for the most part anyhow, they are colorful and fun to watch. But for two hours there's no main story going on, only a number of side plots among the twins doing gangster stuff. Not much more to it, not to say that makes it a bad film, but after a while I didn't know what the real point of the movie was. If someone were to ask me what this movie was about, I'd say "It's about the Kray twins who were gangsters in London during the 1960s". Okay, what happens in it? "Do you have two hours to spare?" Things are constantly happening, never staying on a single subject for long. It starts with Reggie (the sane twin) getting his brother, Ronnie (the insane twin), out of a mental institute. Then it moves on to them taking out one competing mob. At the same time, Reggie is goes on to date a girl named Frances (Emily Browning). The twins take over a new club and start an alliance with an American mob that doesn't ever come into play. Then Reggie gets put into jail and then comes out to marry Frances, after proposing to her he comes back to his club to discover that Ronnie has driven it into the ground whilst away. They briefly have a disagreement that results in a fist fight and Frances walking away, not for long since in a quick cut they're back together. Then it goes on from there, an hour in, with several mini-plots about the twins doing gangster things, fighting between each other, a court case that's quickly dismissed, Ronnie being a lunatic and running the empire into the ground, Frances and Reggie growing apart, there's a few deaths, a funeral, a wedding, the whole shebang. There was one point towards the end of the film though where the easiest character to route for, Reggie, becomes a lot harder to sympathize with. If you see it then I think you'll understand what I mean, but I'm not going to spoil it here. Will I say that this was a really good movie? No, it is very flawed but as something to entertain with a couple of great performances by one actor alone this definitely gets the job done. Tom Hardy was terrific in the film and without him this wouldn't have been nearly as watchable as it was. Watchability isn't my problem though; I believe that the writing does a disservice to his performances though. I know that this was based on a true story, but if this film had focused on one singular story then I think this could have been one of the better films of this year. As it is, it's fine. It annoys me when something has a lot of potential just to turn out to be a lesser product is all. If you want a truly great gangster movie with a solid performance from this year, see "Black Mass". Johnny Depp will stare daggers into your soul as he strangles out a hooker and it is fantastic. But if you love Tom Hardy then this won't be bad either.