A gangster movie, but not really.

Rating: 5/10 (22 January 2016)

'Legend' is a 2015 gangster film set in 1960s' London, written and directed by Academy Award winner Brian Helgeland, writer of L.A. Confidential and Mystic River, and starring Tom Hardy and Emily Browning. As previously stated, the film is set in London, during the 1960s, and it follows the story of two identical twin brothers, Ronald and Reginald Kray, two of the most notorious criminals in British history, struggling to get on top and enter gangster legend. First of all, 'Legend' manages to almost perfectly capture the feel and aesthetics of the period it is set in, along with all the cars, the buildings and even the soundtrack. However, the high point of the movie would have to be Tom Hardy. The British actor pulls off a memorable performance, portraying both of the Krays, and it almost seems as if he is not alone. He plays Reginald as the mature and calculated one – the one with the brains – and Roland as the act- now-think-later type. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a problem with Ronald's character; not his character in particular, but mostly with the way he was presented to the audience. The film takes too much time desperately trying to make him as crazy, random and unconventional as possible, it eventually becomes predictable. But he's still better than all the other characters which, except for Reggie, are all one-dimensional. At some points, I found myself unable to distinguish which character is supposed to be who and do what, even though their faces aren't similar. And that is pretty surprising, considering the fact that Brian Helgeland won an Oscar for one of his screenplays. And even if we ignore that problem, the movie still feels so static and boring. Nothing interesting or gangster related thing happens until the final quarter of the runtime. They only kill two people and one of the kills isn't even for ''gangster''-related reasons. All they do is own some clubs and casinos and occasionally do some extortions, and by 'occasionally' I mean once. And the fact that it's shamelessly riddled with obnoxious foreshadowing doesn't help. The biggest problem, however, is that it's not even a gangster movie, which may explain why they don't really do much throughout the movie and I wouldn't have a problem with that if the movie weren't marketed as a gangster movie. Even the narration keeps beating you over the head with the whole 'gangster legend' thing. The film takes way too much time focusing on the relationship between Reginald Kray and his wife, Frances Shea, who, for some reason, narrates the whole movie. Instead of having a gangster movie with occasional glimpses of Reggie's and Frances' relationship, we have a rom-com with occasional glimpses of gangster businesses which are merely gangster related. But that may be just me. However, even if we ignore the fact that it's more of a rom-com than a gangster flick, we are still left with a story that drags out too much and bland, boring characters which serve no purpose. To sum up, I think that 'Legend' is a perfect example of a failed family-friendly gangster film. I don't know what Brian intended to do, but he failed and we were left with an unfinished hybrid of a movie with characters no one cares about and a tiresome, way-too- long and clumsily presented story which focuses on something that should have been kept as background.