There’s a clip from this movie that I used to see on TikTok all the time, where Tom Hardy, playing 1960’s London crime boss Reggie Kray, talks shit to a bunch of rival gangsters who plan on “knocking the granny out of him” while Tom Hardy, playing 1960’s London crime boss Ronnie Kray, throws a fit that he’s not about to be involved in a gunfight, storms out, then sneaks back into the room behind everyone with a hammer in each hand. That’s where the clip ends. It’s a good clip.

I have planned to spend two hours of my weekend watching this movie for approximately nineteen straight weekends. I finally watched it this morning.

Let’s get this out of the way real quick:

Legend is the story of the Kray twins, notorious and apparently real Cockney gangsters from 1960’s London who worked out of the East End. Reggie is the levelheaded one; Ronnie is literally a dangerous psychopath who spends most of the movie off of his meds. Reggie falls in love with Emily Browning’s Frances early in the movie; Frances provides narration throughout the film, and their love story, such as it is, is the driving force behind the actual plot. She knows who she’s dating (and, eventually, marrying) and wants Reggie to go straight; Ronnie very much does not want that.

This is one of those movies that’s more about the actors than it is the plot, and … God damn, I had never really gotten Tom Hardy before, but he’s absolutely amazing in this. Ten years of development in movie effects means that Michael B. Jordan’s Smokestack twins look a little more seamless when they’re both facing the camera and talking to each other– you can tell some compositing is happening when both of their faces are in the same shot– but the distinction between the two characters is tremendous. Hardy’s wearing some prosthetics as Ronnie; his nose is broken, he’s a little heavier, and there’s something going on with his lips that I was never able to quite nail down, but what really distinguishes the two is the aura of utter malice that Ronnie radiates every single second he’s on screen. Neither of these men are nice guys, mind you, which the movie goes to great pains to remind you a few times– you are pushed away from identifying with either of them– but Reg is a scorpion and Ronnie is a pissed-off pit bull with a frayed piece of twine holding him back. Their voices are also slightly different– I have no idea what Hardy’s natural accent actually sounds like, but there’s a point in the movie where Reg does an imitation of his brother for a sentence or two and it feels like an impersonation rather than Hardy just briefly switching accents. It’s a tremendous, understated bit of acting and it was one of my favorite moments in the film.

But let’s talk about Emily Browning for a moment. I think this is the only thing I’ve ever seen her in, and she’s meant to be the stand-in for the audience– and, again, is also the narrator throughout the movie. You know from the jump that things aren’t going to end well, but unless you’re already familiar with the Krays you won’t know exactly how. Browning’s chemistry with Hardy as Reg is absolutely off the charts; their first scene together, where Reg asks Frankie out for the first time, is one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen on-screen, and the two of them barely touch each other. The tension is crackling between the two of them; I was surprised there weren’t literal sparks. Similarly, she and Ronnie never trust each other at all; during their first encounter, he explains that he’s a homosexual but that he doesn’t “receive,” and that’s about as comfortable conversation as they’re going to have at any point in the movie.

I mean, stuff happens in the movie, but it’s ultimately about the relationships between these three characters, and how Reggie is torn between loyalty to his brother and loyalty to his wife. That’s what drives all of the conflicts in the movie; there’s a subplot about a cop chasing the two of them that doesn’t amount to much and a couple of court scenes, but everything revolves around them. Frankie’s brother works for Reggie. Frankie’s mom loathes Reggie, showing up in black to their wedding and prompting one of Ronnie’s most terrifying moments, and Reggie’s mom, who dotes on Ronnie throughout the film, doesn’t like Frankie much either. There’s a scene between the two of them where Frankie makes her a cup of tea and Violet rejects it, which is apparently the British equivalent of killing someone’s dog.

I know it came out ten years ago, but if you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out.