Incredible 10/10

Rating: 10/10 (13 September 2015)

Tom Hardy's best performance yet, throughout the whole film he managed to keep an obvious difference between Ronnie and Reggie; down to the mannerisms, how they walk and how they talk. I kept forgetting that Tom was playing both characters! It would have been so easy for Tom to make Ronnie come across as mindless, cold human being who put no thought into anything but he gave Ronnie so many dimensions within his character, coming across as a guy who is charming, funny, and almost innocent but not fully in control in his actions... how Hardy pulled this off while acting as Reggie as well i'll never know.
If Hardy doesn't win awards for this there is something wrong. I watched The Rise of The Krays recently and felt the opposite towards Ronnie in that film as he just came across as a senseless human that just got a thrill out of beating people up with little to no thought but not with Tom Hardy's portrayal of Ronnie. As the film progressed i felt myself really warming to Ronnie. I felt like I understood him, he came across as a guy where his heart is in the right place but he just didn't know how to react to certain situations, lashing out irrationally more often than not but you kind of forgive it as Hardy has set up a solid foundation of the fact he is a caring person deep down, how he managed to do this while playing Reggie and nailing that as well i will never know. Well done Tom... Well done.
Visually excellent. All the locations were beautifully shot and felt authentic to its time. The costume design was awesome. I know it may seem simple but the suits they were wearing, screamed class about them. Every single shot was thought about, I won't give any spoilers but if you see a close up it means something (not like other films where close ups are overused) so don't just surpass a close up.
Also i loved at the start that when Ronnie says "that's interesting". Apparently he doesn't know what he's on about or doesn't understand when he says this so throughout the film when he says "that's interesting" it's a nice cue to let us understand how Ronnie is digesting a situation... it may not sound like much but i personally thought it was used incredibly effectively.
Editing was on point. There isn't a lot to be said about the editing as it's amazing, you'd think it would be hard to edit this film together considering Tom is playing the main characters so splitting them up etc. and yes it would be hard but at no point was there a hiccup that took me out of the film. Richard Ayoade's The Double has the same idea of playing one actor for the two main characters and it was okay but seemed to play it safe whereas this film just pushed the boundaries so much and managed to pull it off above and beyond of what I expected.
Casting was spot on and the film is so stylish, The rule of thirds game was strong in this film and they used that to their advantage in the sense that it would be very easy to be distracted by Tom playing Ronnie and Reggie... I know Tom Hardy's performance was so good we didn't notice it but Brian Helgeland obviously wanted to play it extra safe by really thinking about where he placed the shots and where they were standing. Best example i can give is when they are sat in the room with Leslie Payne and they are sat on opposite sides of the room, now, that could look awkward and be maybe distracting as they do hold the shot but they really think about how to set up the shot so the visual and aesthetic appreciation takes away any distraction that Tom Hardy plays the same character and this mentality is carried throughout the entire film.
All in all amazing film, thoroughly enjoyed it. This will go up in my top 5 favorite films. Tom Hardy should get an Oscar for this!