Legend

Legend (2015) is about two real London gangsters, the identical twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, in the 1960s. The hook is that Tom Hardy plays both of them. Reggie is calculating and charming. Ronnie has a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia and reaches for violence without pausing. The scenes where they share a frame are the best thing in the film, technically and as performance. The narrator is Reggie's wife Frances, and that choice matters. The story is not told by the men building the legend but by someone being crushed inside it. Emily Browning's part looks small next to Hardy's double act. It is the moral centre of the picture. The main criticism landed here: the film often makes the Krays look glamorous and plays some of the violence for laughs. That is a fair objection. At 132 minutes it sags in the middle. Good for: gangster films, true crime, and anyone who wants to watch Tom Hardy work. Less good for: violence arrives suddenly and it is bloody, and the film handles suicide and mental illness. If you want a rigorous account of the actual Kray case, this is softened.