williamford-17805

Good nature show, but unfortunately let down by this odd over-emphasis on trying to make all the camera operators into stars of the show and turning that portion of the show into a reality show about their unentertaining hi-jinks that no one asked for. They do a fine job getting the shots themselves, which are fascinating at times, but most of them really lack the charisma to be stars. One in particular really seems love the spotlight a little too much, and tries to inject herself into every situation comments that were rarely insightful and often just tedious. There's a reason Attenborough does voice-overs: people want to see the animals, not endless cuts to the camera operators telling them "wow, this is like, crazy!" over and over again.

Many films set out to bring a compelling idea to life and fall short. This film apparently never had an idea at all, other than "let's do a Kray brothers film". Zero creative spark, zero idea of how to actually make it a story worth telling.

There's no real plot to speak of, just a series of barely connected scenes, none of which are particularly interesting. Both the romance and the crime stories are played-out, boring and cliché-ridden. By the end, it became clear there was no point to any of it. The style is a transparent ripoff of Scorcese but with none of the elements that make his films compelling.

Tom Hardy puts in a dependably-okay double performance, but no actor could have salvaged a script this hollow. There are no sympathetic characters to root for. The Krays are loathsome scum from start to finish, and while the film tries to make us to like them by contrasting them as being somehow honest compared to the high-society hypocrites, it's nowhere near enough to make up for the fact that these Krays are one-dimensional, boring characters with no redeeming qualities or charisma.

The WAGish female lead is little more than a smiley airhead who goes from knowing from the start that Ronnie is a gangster, spending years justifying being with a gangster, to leaving him because he turned out to be... a gangster.

As a result, the conclusions of the various plotlines have no emotional impact whatsoever. The film completely fails to give us any reason to care what happens to any of its characters. The mawkish, cringeworthy narration throughout and particularly at the end of the film, adds a particularly stinky topping to the mess that this film really was.