1960s London. Twin gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray rule the British capital. The first is an ambitious brute and the second an unstable and paranoid man. At the head of a ruthless mafia that gives them almost unlimited power, the brothers seem invincible. But because Reggie falls madly in love with Frances and the gentle Ronnie becomes increasingly unmanageable, their empire will collapse.

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Grotesque, terrifying, unexpected: Tom Hardy – in both roles – is the best thing about Legend, which follows the extraordinary journey of the Kray twins. Nebulous in Mad Max: Fury Road, here he seems freed from all constraints, transforming each scene into great theater of the extreme, as he embodies both the dormant brute and the powerful psychopath. Other than that, Legend isn’t much: the script is content to follow the codes of the genre, with careful staging and generic secondary characters – at least there is Emily Browning who makes the most of a role that looks sad on paper. This is not the work of Brian Helgeland the great Hollywood screenwriter, who gave us Mystic River, Green Zone and Robin Hood, instead it is that of Brian Helgeland the director, who gave us tepid fare like Payback and A Knight’s Tale.