La légende des Kray

I have always been interested in the Krays. I have read most of the books about them and I also enjoyed the 1990 film with the Kemp brothers, which was flawed and left a great deal of things out, but became a cult film. The Rise Of The Krays, however, makes the Kemp film look like a masterpiece in comparison. I only watched it for half an hour and I thought it was absolute rubbish. It featured violence just for the sake of it, no coherent plot, was obviously made on a shoestring and featured no actors that I had actually heard of before. To make matters even worse, the two actors playing the Krays didn't look like them at all! The comment on the cover of the DVD states that this is, apparently, "The Best British Gangster Film Ever", which is complete rubbish. This is, without doubt, the worst film I have seen for a long time and anyone who knows anything about the Krays' story would soon spot glaring mistakes. It is a blatant rip-off of the 1990 film and an obvious cash-in on the new Legend film starring Tom Hardy as the twins. He looks more like the Krays than the two jokers in this film. Honestly, just don't waste your time or money on this rubbish. If you want to know more about the Krays, then I suggest you read one of the books about them, which are infinitely more accurate and tell a fuller picture than this film. You will thank me for it, trust me. Even the 1990 film is better than this.

This is a good example of when the writer and director get together and try to be artsy. Most of the dialog isn't bad, and most of the acting is at least par. But man they have these scenes, slow mo, and in "space" that just sink this movie. It's like they were looking for 40 minutes of filler to extend this crap into some series instead of just telling the story. They weren't even montage worth scenes, it's like they watched pulp fiction and tried to implement it but failed full out. They took up such a large portion of this first part that it was almost unwatchable. The story of the Krays has so much potential, however you won't see that here! It's simply not scripted well enough to make the story of two kick ass twin brother gangsters good. With so much source material it's a sad statement that they couldn't get it right. You can not simply depict people as crazy by having slow mo space screens with them holding a gun. What ever this director was thinking when he shot this, or the write was thinking when they wrote it just makes my head hurt. This movie is exhibit A on what not to do when writing a movie.

Tom Hardy plays Reggie and Ronnie Kray ? Hey let's make a tie in movie and release it straight to DVD . Don't worry about developing it because the other film will market this one so it's just a case of releasing our film first

That's the impression I got and THE RISE OF THE KRAYS is painfully under-developed . As the other commentators have pointed out the titular characters are played by actors who bare little resemblance to the twins . Worse than that they're not good actors either . Simon Cotton is fairly dreadful as Ronnie and resembles a not very good actor playing an East End gangster . I suppose I should be charitable and say the cast and the rest of the production team were probably under heavy pressure with deadlines but even so the poor production values are a constant distraction

I can understand what director Zackary Adler tries to do with some scenes and that is to express in a cinematic style the mental illness Ronnie Kray suffers from , but considering the subject matter is an expressionistic film featuring violent gangsters really the place for a study of schizophrenia ? Probably not . Again to be charitable at least the production team don't come out with the old clichés of "Any old ladies getting mugged and he twins wanted to know about it . They stuck to their own , we were safe in those days etc etc" . The Krays are portrayed as unpleasant characters but this is also an unpleasant badly film too

This is another attempt at the story of the Kray twins who terrorised London's East End starting in the early 1960s. UK resident will know of the Kray twins as they had quite a reputation. Their portrayal in this movie is laughable. They come across as misunderstood, well meaning brats which they certainly weren't. As far as pure entertainment goes the movie is a first class clanger. The story of the Krays has been done before and was a considerably better effort than this latest version. Obviously made on a tight budget and full of historical inaccuracies, it is dull and at most times, embarrassing and painful to watch. I humbly suggest that you do yourself a huge favour, steer clear of this dud and wait for the release of "Legend" with Tom Hardy which I imagine will be infinitely better.

if you forget its a film about the Krays then it isn't bad, as a biopic of the twins growing up unfortunately it is terrible, acting wise anyway, stories not to tuff and it is to jumpy like the 90's kray film, as viewers we want to know things we didn't know about that period in time about the twins or how the events went down, i know we have to wait for the fall of the Krays for this, but personally i was disappointed in the movie. Cant wait for legend hopefully they don't jump around the time scene and stick certain points that are relevant for Kray fans, i don't understand why it classes itself as the "best British gangster movie" its OK but far from the best.

Rise of the foot soldier is 80 times better personal opinion, and Legend will be even better than this!!