Legend

It’s flawed, yes – Frances is frustratingly underwritten, her psychological fault lines spoken of but never shown – but it’s also swaggeringly cinematic. And it has Tom Hardy vs Tom Hardy.

Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy are the reasons to see Legend.

Legend is more than a gimmick, but not quite enough. The movie’s a testament to the Krays’ ability to get away with everything — for a while, anyway. But it’s better evidence of Tom Hardy’s ability to do just about anything.

While he arguably fails to rein in his leading man (or half of him), screenwriter-turned-director Helgeland has a light touch, leavening the ultra-violence – and there are gory scenes – with a flair for absurdity.

Legend offers two Hardys for the price of one but delivers less than a satisfying whole despite the efforts of its star(s).

The movie was written and directed by Brian Helgeland, whose screenplay for “L.A. Confidential” (1997) won an Oscar — deservedly so, for the skein of plot required a steady hand. Legend, by contrast, pummels us into believing that it has a plot, where none exists.

To take such a subject and render it without focus, interest, or joy—to make a long, dull movie from it — qualified as some perverse sort of achievement.

I'm not going to click "contains spoiler," but it's extremely minor and I want to get people who haven't seen this movie to see it: this movie is very subtle. It is perfectly content to have smoothbrains sit through the whole thing and think it's just some mediocre representative of the gangster genre, outside of one feel-good scene near the beginning and Hardy's fantastic acting. But there is a deeper message of hurt beneath that, quiet but profoundly subversive. The movie at its core is a devastating guilt trip to its audience, exquisite in its craftsmanship, resonating with truth, and just begging them to avert their eyes to further prove the point. There is a trope in modern media about the woke writers destroying a franchise with what Will "Critical Drinker" Jordan would call The Message. They're right, those movies are bad, but not because they have contempt for their audience. Those other writers put none of the work in to know their audience, they just assert that they are right and that is wrong without any arguments as to why. Legend, in contrast, knows where to hit and hits with precision. It says it itself: it is only capable of such hate because it was capable of such love. It is everything that those "woke" movies hope to be but never could be.

While Tom Hardy is excellent playing double duty as two criminal twin brothers, I felt a little let down by Legend. The movie really doesn't deviate from the established "gangster story." While this is not necessarily a bad thing, the film meanders and does not build or establish characters in any interesting way. This is a real shame, as Hardy gives a great performance. There is really nothing remarkable at all about Legend, other than Tom Hardy elevating the movie to slightly above average for me. It plays everything way too safe, which is unfortunately Legend's biggest flaw.

The acting by Tom hardy playing both Ronald and Reggie Kray is superb. You can really see the different personalities that Hardy portrays in the 2 Kray twins. The story shows the rise and fall of the Krays but fell a bit short in terms of the depth it went into.

Me dormí varias veces y la película no acababa, todo es predecible y da sueño

Unfortunately, for all the bravado that Tom Hardy offers in the dual role of the Kray twins, all his hard work is undone by a mediocre script, terrible pacing, and not enough actual story to carry the running time of 132 minutes. And it's a real shame, as the director clearly understands how to portray the time, and places, in the East end of London in the mid-late 60s. What could have been a proper delve into the mindset of the two men just turns into a slow-paced, mini-crescendo offering, empty piece of cinema.