Legend (18)

three stars

Dir: Brian Helgeland

With: Tom Hardy, Taron Egerton

Runtime: 131 minutes

TOM Hardy famously plays both Krays in Brian Helgeland’s drama, and his performance is the best thing about an otherwise patchy piece that revisits all the old cliches about the Cockney gangsters. Helgeland does not shy away from the violence – hence the 18 certificate – and there is some attempt at moral complexity, but there is more than a whiff of The Fast Show about the film’s take on events, particularly when Tom does Ron (the officially mad one). More troubling, the picture cannot, in the end, resist the urge to make thugs look like the movie stars they thought they were. But hey, those bruvvers really did love their muvver.

La Famille Belier (12A)

three stars

Dir: Eric Lartigau

With: Karin Viard, Francois Damiens

Runtime: 103 minutes

A TEENAGER dreams of leaving the family farm and pursuing her dreams of singing. An old story, certainly, but one given a significant new twist in this slight but enjoyable French box-office smash. Paula (Louane Emera) is the only one in her family who can hear, so how can she possibly leave home? Director Eric Lartigau skilfully weaves disability politics into a big-hearted family comedy.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (12A)

two stars

Dir: Wes Ball

With: Dylan O’Brien, Ki Hong Lee

Runtime: 131 minutes

THE second instalment in the adaptation of James Dashner’s young adult novels finds Thomas the hero believing he has found sanctuary in a post-apocalyptic world, only to discover life is more complicated. Plenty of running, jumping and video game-style shooting to please the converted; you will have to be a fan to tolerate the 131-minute runtime.

In Cold Blood (15)

Dir: Richard Brooks

With: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson

Runtime: 132 minutes

IT HAS been ten years since Infamous and Capote brought the Clutter quadruple murders to the screen. High time, then, for Glasgow’s Park Circus to restore and reissue Richard Brooks’s landmark crime drama of 1967. Like Capote’s book, it was ahead of its day in the treatment of crime. Above all else, Brooks delivers a gripping watch.

Filmhouse, Edinburgh, tomorrow-September 17; Glasgow Film Theatre, September 20-22