Legend A Generic Gangster Flick With One Fantastic Element

First thing’s first: 2015’s Legend is not the best movie to hold that title. Ridley Scott’s Legend from the ’80s is far, far better, and if, for some reason, you have “watch a movie called Legend” on your bucket list, that’s the one to watch. And if you only have a quota of one to fill on your “gangster movies to watch in a year” Black Mass is the one you want from 2015. All of this sounds like Legend isn’t a very good movie, and I guess that’s because, for the most part, it’s just an okay film. It only has one special element – which I’ll get to later – and is mostly just mediocre. Legend is about the Kray brothers, Ronnie and Reggie (Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy; yes, again), twin gangsters at the top of their game in the crime scene of East London in the 1950s and ’60s. Reggie is the smooth-talking one who handles the business end of their, well, business, while Ronnie has a lust for violence and has spent several years in a mental institution after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. The two own a club, get people to pay for their “protection,” have rivalries with other gangs, and do all the things that you’d expect from gangsters of that period. I mentioned that Legend has one special element that elevates it beyond mediocrity, and that element, as you may have guessed, is Tom Hardy, here playing dual roles so effectively and effortlessly. While he’s helped out by one of the Kray brothers frequently wearing glasses, he manages to easily create two distinct personalities, ensuring that we always know who’s who. They’ve got different mannerisms and different ways of speaking. There’s a fine line between making them too similar that we can’t tell them apart and too different that we can’t believe they’re brothers, and Hardy walks that line like a champion. Emily Browning turns in her best dramatic performance to date, while Taron Egerton, Christopher Eccleston, Paul Bettany, and David Thewlis all deliver solid performances. Legend will come across as a disappointment to anyone who is expecting an exceptional gangster movie about two of London’s most notorious gangsters. It’s all too familiar, and all too cold, to be that. It is a generic gangster movie that is elevated by two outstanding performances by Tom Hardy, who does such a great job at playing the Kray brothers. But, beyond his outstanding performance – and overall good acting from the supporting cast – there’s very little to differentiate Legend from a couple dozen other gangster movies. It’s not the best gangster movie of 2015, it’s not the best movie named Legend, and it’ll be forever forgotten as a footnote on the careers of all involved. Bottom Line: Legend is a disappointingly familiar and cold gangster movie with a tremendous double-turn from Tom Hardy. Recommendation: Big Tom Hardy fans will want to catch Legend immediately, but for anyone else it’s best left for home video, if at all. [rating=2.5]