Tom Hardy is effective playing both Kray brothers in Legend but it is not a good film

REVIEW: Tom Hardy’s double turn as both Kray brothers in Legend doesn’t excuse the fact the film is gormlessly glorifying two awful human beings.

LEGEND (MA15+)

Director: Brian Helgeland (A Knight’s Tale)

Starring: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton.

Rating : 2.5/5

No cause for celebration

Where you come to stand on Legend will all come down to your own perception of value.

Two Tom Hardys for the price of one? Reads like an absolute bargain, doesn’t it?

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Until you check the fine print, that is. For it doesn’t take long for this half-baked gangster pic to make it plain you’ve paid overs on an underwhelming movie experience.

Hardy plays both Reginald and Ronald Kray, the notorious twin psychopaths who briefly lorded over London’s crime scene in the 1960s.

While the leading man (much like Johnny Depp in Black Mass) is spookily effective in most scenes, there’s no getting away from the fact Legend is gormlessly glorifying two awful human beings who have already had too much admiring attention.

Dodgy brothers: Tom Hardy plays Kray twins Reggie and Ronnie in a scene from film Legend

Many books, TV shows and the occasional movie have been devoted to the Krays since each was locked up on separate murder raps in the 1970s. Legend reveals nothing new whatsoever in terms of fresh insights into the sinister siblings (both of whom were dead by the turn of the millennium).

Writer-director Brian Helgeland sticks to the same boilerplate analysis of the brothers that has propelled many a dodgy documentary about the Krays.

Ron was the gay one. Reg was the straight one. Ron with the completely insane one. Reg was the partially insane one. Ron was dumb as a plank. Reg was too smart for his own good. And so on.

The distinct differences between these two stabby brutes gives Hardy plenty of opportunities to showcase his extensive range as an actor.

However, you never really get the impression he is truly exerting or extending himself in any way.

Much of the hard (and thankless) work in the movie falls to Hardy’s Australian co-star Emily Browning, who plays Reg’s ill-fated wife Frances.

The decision to also have Browning also narrate proceedings in the voice of Frances — a mentally fragile young woman shown to be beaten and raped by her husband in one scene here — is a howling misjudgment which sums up the pointlessness of the whole production.

Howling misjudgment: Tom Hardy (as Reggie Kray) and Emily Browning (as Frances Shea) in Legend.

Originally published as Tom Hardy is effective playing both Kray brothers in Legend but it is not a good film