Mob Movie Monday "Legend" Review Starring Tom Hardy | Michael Franzese

i got a little chatter for you you're gonna love this one a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a [Music] bar [Music] hey everyone welcome to another sit down with michael francis hope everybody is doing well and today is mob movie monday got a great one for you today it's the movie legend about the cray brothers the cray twins uh who were based out of london uh in the united kingdom great movie if you haven't seen it you gotta watch it but before we get to that a couple of announcements uh my book blood covenant that we've been out of stock on since i think around christmas time we finally got him in so if you're interested in the book you can go on you know facebook or you can go on instagram or there's links at the bottom here you can go to the store yes i sign it for you we don't use a stamp i signed every one of them so i had a lot of books over the last 20 some odd years but this book blood covenant is the um the book that my life story made into a television series is based upon this book so may want to pick it up i've been getting a lot of requests lately for it so that's that there's other products on there too so that's that uh we're into the month of march great you know maybe we get near the end of this pandemic you know we heard conflicting things about that but i think it's coming to a close the vaccine is out there hopefully we're going to be start getting back to what uh our normal life is all about so we'll see about that so the movie legend you know um i never really watched this movie uh for some reason i was always interrupted during my time watching it but i got a chance to to watch it last night and you know what terrific film tom hardy plays both brothers reggie and ronnie he did a masterful job the only problem i had with the movie was sometimes with ronnie craig's accent it's heavy london type of accent and i had a little trouble sometimes picking up on it but other than that it was a brilliant film and just an overall summary of it i liken this film quite a bit to chicago during the capone era now this was london during the 1960s around that time but the cray brothers kind of reminded me of capone and the same operation in some ways and as i get into the movie as you get into the movie too i think you'll see that but really a brilliant film a little bit different than a lot of the other mob movies that are out there it had a real intense love story a sad story as a matter of fact but a real intense love story in it the brothers i've never seen characters like both of them they're very very unique and sometimes we forget but this is not the mafia but it is organized crime they were a gang they were gangsters and these kind of criminal operations exist all over the world really in just about every country and so this one is is a great one so watch the movie i guess it's on netflix i watched it on a different format last night but pick it up and watch it you're going to enjoy it so how does the film open up interesting opens up in london again 1960s and we see reggie cray who is the more sane and that's that's kind of putting it lightly the more sane of the two brothers um he's walking in the street and he's under surveillance from two detectives uh two you know london detectives and he walks up to them and he offers them a cup of coffee and donuts or whatever it is they offer them and it made me laugh a little bit because when i was under surveillance my dad was under surveillance same thing we had these poor guys sitting in a car for 24 hours a day seven days a week waiting for us to do something so every once in a while we'd offer them coffee maybe a donut you know got to talk to them because some of them were decent guys they were doing their job and so uh they didn't like reggie you could see that right off the bat he was being a little bit of a smart ass with them and and they kind of responded the same way but that's how the film opens up and then shortly after that we see reggie walking over to to meet one of his guys i think his driver and uh his sister opens the door and that is the young lady her name is francis that does become the love of reggie's life and the kind of love story for the film starts there you can see there's an attraction between the two of them right away and as the movie develops the love story develops and it turned out to be a sad one but uh it was a kind of a thread throughout the whole movie and actually this woman francis she does the uh voice over throughout the film she's kind of telling the story and you know voiceovers could be very effective if they're done the right way you know i'll just give you a little hint in the industry people normally don't like to do voice-overs they say it's kind of a shortcut rather than showing you know the film uh itself but if it's done the right way like it was done in goodfellas if you remember henry hill did the voice over it was great if you do it in the right way it's great it was also done in casino a couple of movies so some people really know how to do it well some of the writers so in here i thought it was done well too so the film develops you start to learn a little bit about reggie cray he's got kind of his gang and what he's into there the criminal activity he's into there extortion and things like that kind of normal stuff he also owns a nightclub and he's also into gambling a little bit that kind of a thing and him and francis get together at one point and they go meet his brother ronnie now let me tell you about ronnie ronnie is definitely insane he's certifiable no doubt about it you can see that throughout the film and he actually went to prison for something i think it was manslaughter after he was convicted they put him in a psychiatric home because he was insane well what happens he starts meeting with the psychiatrist who knows that he's certifiable but reggie arranges to basically threaten the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist gives a good report to the government and they allow ronnie out on the street the psychiatrist then meets with reggie later on and says i know what you did you got to me i'm scared for my life basically that's what he's telling me in summon substance he said well your brother's nuts he's he's definitely insane he needs medication reggie kind of just pushes it off so you know right off the bat ronnie is uh you know a troublesome kind of guy and uh these are very violent guys really violent guys and uh both of them and you know as the story develops you see that between the two of them so we do see a scene when i think it's their first date when reggie and francis are in his nightclub and reggie gets called over by some of his guys to meet with somebody that owes some money and they're talking about it a little bit and reggie makes this guy know you know come back to work pay us the money that you owe us he gets up like everything is fine then boom he hits him in the mouth you know so you know right away reggie means business and then somebody says uh some profane word some profanity and as reggie's walking away he says hey i told you don't use profanity in my nightclub a lot you know but uh it was a funny scene kind of shows you a different side of reggie the next scene is when we really get introduced to ronnie and reggie and francis are going to this trailer park or trailer that's in the middle of nowhere and ronnie walks out of the trailer and again you know that he's certifiable you can see it in his eyes i mean you just see it and um he's sitting down with francis uh reggie goes into the trailer for something and ronnie starts to talk to francis he introduces himself and during the conversation ronnie felt it important to let francis know that he was a homosexual his boyfriend actually walks out of the trailer and it's interesting what he says he says hey i think it's important that we are honest about you know who we really are and he says that so and then the conversation moves on next scene reggie is uh walking in the street and boom somebody hits him with a car and we find out that that's a rival gang there is a rival gang they're called a torture gang actually and we see a scene where this torture gang um is actually torturing somebody it's a gruesome scene you know kind of they got a guy hanging up and they're punching them and electrocuting him and everything else so we find out that there's two rival gangs in london there's the cray and then the craze and then there's the torture gang and so that's kind of sets up what's going on the organized crime activity in london at that time shortly after that uh the rival gang they sent some people over to the crazed social club or bar or restaurant and they say we want to have a truce so they talk about having a truce we see ronnie saying we don't want no truce and you know they have a conversation and they arrange to have a meeting and at that meeting they're going to arrange for the truce between the two gangs well the truce ends up being a set up and the rival gang uh was really looking to set up the two craze they were going to give him a beaten in the club and ronnie shows a little bit of his crazy side he gets upset he walks out of the club and reggie's in there by himself and reggie is calling out the other 10 guys from the rival gang that are in there it's really cool the way he does it tells him what to do where to go and all this kind of stuff and they're about to in their view you know really kick his ass they're going after him well ronnie slips back into the club he's got a ball-peen hammer in his hand and boom a fight ensues and the two crade twins end up devastating all of these guys they really beat them up it's a gruesome scene and knock them out right it's unbelievable and from what i'm what i hear about the craze and i'm going to get into that a little bit because i have a little you know inside information about them this is true they were violent uh brothers they really were ronnie was crazy reggie was a tough guy no doubt about it and this is how they operated so they just about leveled at that point that rival gang that was it and they kind of established themselves as the two guys in london next scene we find out they have a guy like roy cohn a guy by the name of payne his last name is pain he's kind of like an attorney type a barrister they call him in in london and there is a scene there where the craze want to buy a gambling club it's called the esmeralda club and the owner of the club comes in he sits down with payne payne says we're going to make you an offer you can't refuse basically he says i don't want to sell the club and payne says look we can do this the nice way or we can do it the hard way the crate twins are sitting in the back the guy gets the message he sells the club so now they own the esmeralda club which is a great place uh gambling operation so they established themselves in that regard they got a nightclub and the craze are starting to really come up in london they have established themselves as the guys there okay so what happens now we hear that my old organization the mob wants to move in on london and maya lansky obviously took notice of what the craze were doing in london they were have established themselves in vegas during this time and now they want to move to london so they send a representative there who happens to be chas palmitary to meet with the craig brothers and offer them a deal and basically they have a sit down over it and they make a deal during that time where um they're gonna go partners and uh i think chas was representing lansky and luciano and that group there they make a deal and chas tells them we're gonna go 60 40. we'll put up the money reggie craig says no we're gonna go 50 50. we're partners we're not working for you we're working together and chas kind of likes it and he says okay let's do it ronnie gets off a little bit says some silly things but chaz enjoys it and anyway they make a deal so the mob's always got to get involved when we see a buck anywhere in the world we're in on it if we can possibly be and you know maialanski did do a lot of things in europe and he had gambling operations all over the world and so he was involved with the cray brothers there they did make a deal and they moved forward now things start to get heavy between francis and reggie and francis you know in many respects she's a good girl she she doesn't want reggie in criminal activity she wants him to go straight reggie has a problem he had an old warrant against him and it turns out that he's got to do some time in jail not a lot i think six months or a year whatever it might have been and uh he promises francis that when he comes out of jail he's going to go straight she's not going to fool around not going to do anything wrong because she's not into that she doesn't want it she loves him i mean you can see the love story really developing and she wants him to come straight and by the way this is based upon a true story i don't know if i said that in the beginning but it is based upon a true story so reggie ends up turning himself in he gets into the prison and bad day for him the guards are well aware of him they don't like him after they check him in and they process him they bring him into corridara hall and they beat him up and they beat him up bad like five or six guards gave him a real real beating they drag him into his cell you see that he's all bloody he's lying on the ground and is on the floor in this in the cell and he tells the uh the guard i need water i need water and the guard is kind of harassing him oh here's the big shot reggie cray begging me for a cup of water so he goes and gets the water and he brings it over to the cell it's a great scene brings it over to the cell unbeknownst to him during the beating reggie had grabbed his handcuffs and when the guard puts his hand in there to hand him the water reggie puts the handcuff on him and handcuffs him both hands to the cell and then starts beating him up takes his his billy club and starts hitting him overhead he gives the guard a beating that's it you know great scene so again real tough guy no doubt about it so he's doing his time he sees uh francis in prison on a visit he promises her again you know we're going to go straight he really does love her you could see it the love story's really developed so now reggie finishes his time and he comes out and he goes back to his club and he finds out that ronnie has basically ran the club into the ground he's destroyed he doesn't know how to run a business the guy's insane right he's going to run a club but everybody's afraid of him so they don't want to tell him you're doing this wrong you're doing that wrong he runs it into the ground reggie goes in there on a friday night there's nobody in there there was a scene before this where uh ronnie grabbed the microphone when the club was crowded and he starts talking to the audience saying all of these nonsense things like he's a gangster everybody in the club is like who is this guy they're afraid of him anyhow he runs it into the ground reggie is very very upset they're in the in the club together reggie is yelling at ronnie ronnie yells back at him i think ronnie says something you know disparaging about francis and reggie hits him anyway they have a huge fight in the club two brothers right they really go at it and uh huge fight at the end of the day ronnie gets the worst of it reggie kind of beats him up ronnie gets the worst of it but you know reggie got it too but ronnie got the worst of it and he's on the ground and you think that these two are never going to get together again like it's over with between them but reggie's got a sore spot still loves his brother and they do get back into a relationship together so now we have ronnie again in some crazy scene and and this is true by the way he's meeting with somebody because he wants money to open up some kind of a business deal that he has in nigeria a legitimate deal because this is going to give him recognition it's kind of uh you know something that he really wants to do but he needs a lot of money to do it and he approaches one of these uh politicians that he knows through his uh homosexual friend you know his boyfriend his relationship and uh he's trying to get money out of him basically to build something in nigeria that would be good for his image and he's hell-bent on this this is what he wants to do that kind of develops throughout the story anyway the brothers get busted again and uh through a series of events they're able to set up the government in such a way that they're able to basically bribe their way out of uh getting convicted in the case the case gets dismissed it was a whole extortion case the case gets dismissed and that kind of really establishes the craze as the go-to gangsters in london and we see a scene there when this guy payne who i liken to roy cohen he was kind of the fixer and he was the legitimate guy in the operation that does things for the craig brothers mainly for reggie because ronnie didn't like him right off the bat ronnie had tried to get 50 000 pounds out of him money uh to put up this thing in nigeria uh you know payne wouldn't give him the money said he didn't have the money because he had run the club into the ground this was before reggie had gotten out on his last beef and so uh ronnie didn't like payne at all we see another scene where payne is telling the two brothers look you guys got to stop with the violence you've got to establish yourself as business guys you got to stop it because this is going to lead to nowhere ronnie gets disgusted with him says hey we're gangsters that's who we are you know and finally ronnie like he's had it he picks up a glass he throws it at pain smashes the side of his head pain runs out of the place reggie and ronnie clash again you know ronnie says to his brother reggie this guy knows too much about us if anything happens he's going to turn snitch he's going to send us to jail reggie says hey everybody in the place knows about us we got this guy picking up money for us we got this guy paying off cops you want to kill everybody you want to throw everybody out you know reggie's like you know what are you crazy you know he's working with us we can't worry about all of these guys they're part of our team and they clash again the brothers are constantly clashing now all the time so as the story develops you know the love story part continues to go with francis and reggie reggie wants to marry francis francis says if you go straight if you don't get convicted on this case or any other case i'll marry you and but that's a condition he's got to stay straight he's got to get out of the criminal lifestyle reggie promises that he will they do get married and uh supposedly things are going well ronnie goes off as rocker again um he's going after the rival gang guy i think the guy his name was george uh he makes a deal with somebody he says you give me two thousand pounds somebody that this guy george you know from the torture gang had roughed up ronnie tells him in a scene you give me 2 000 pounds i'll kill george for you guy agrees ronnie now goes into a club george's club george is sitting at the bar ronnie walks in there's six seven eight witnesses there walks right up to george george is kind of sneering at him ronnie puts a bullet in his head george is gone front everybody everybody's seen it right he's got witnesses all over the place so reggie finds out about it next scene we see ronnie over at their mom's house and the mom is taking care of ronnie he's eating there reggie comes in and says are you out of your mind you shoot this guy in front of seven witnesses you're going to go to jail ronnie is like you know again he's certifiable he had to do it you know whatever and so reggie now is getting quit is questioning ronnie so he can find out what happened so reggie can try to fix it got to get to the people that were in the bar got to silence them he's planning this whole thing tells ronnie look tell me everything that happened that night what clothes were you wearing where was the gun because reggie wants to clean it all up for him still they're brothers you could see that they you know that that reggie felt for him and had the love for his brother it's really a touching thing as crazy as it was that no matter what his brother did you know he could hit him he could beat him up they could clash but still was his brother and he wants to uh you know he wants to uh help him in any way he can you know i kind of relate to my own situation in that regard my brother you know john who many of you know about you know i can't even begin to tell you that the trouble that this kid caused you know because of his drug habit more than anything else and between me and my dad we had to pull him out of so many jams so many things that happened i mean there's no doubt about it if he wasn't you know my brother my father's son he would have gotten killed there's no doubt about it but we always want the bat for him we always tried to help him in every which way in the end you know the story he turned on my father he became an informant joined the government put my father back in prison but you know what i still love him he's my brother and uh you know i know what he grew up it was tough you know situation in our household with my father being in prison you know my mother being a little bit crazy we grew up under some very very difficult conditions it really impacted my brother really impacted my sister who ended up dying of an overdose of drugs you know my younger sister wasn't you know all there at times you know she just just mentally she just didn't mature properly emotionally the same thing so i kind of understand you know but even though your family member can hurt you in such a way and cause you so much problem problems you know there's that that love between it i love my brother now too i don't agree with the things he did but i love him you know we are talking now i hadn't talked to my brother for 10 years but we are speaking i haven't seen him in a long time but we are talking and i still feel for him and you know some people say well your brother's this and that doesn't matter he's my brother same way with my father you know i love my father i don't care what he did in many many ways it didn't affect the love that i had for him the love between us just the way it is and family i'm sure many of you can relate to that you know you've had a sister a brother or family member maybe a parent maybe a child that just drove you crazy you know caused you a lot of trouble in your life but for some reason that love is there and i think reggie felt for ronnie he knew you know definitely that this guy was not in his right mind so here now in a very difficult situation he does his best to help him out we see there that their investigation comes in because again you know he killed this guy in front of everybody guys lying on the floor the cops come in we do see a scene where the barmaid who was in the bar the night that ronnie shot this guy they bring her to a lineup that ronnie is in and she's asked to identify the killer they knew it was ronnie the cops did but they they had to have a witness well she's uh you know looking at everybody and she said he's not here she won't identify ronnie so obviously reggie did get to her at that point in time and now ronnie's free at least for the for that point in time of that murder all right but things are pretty intense now we're getting you know near the end of the story and uh francis has kind of had it you know she's in the middle of all of this she sees what's going on with ronnie and reggie she understands the relationship between reggie and ronnie and i think she's at the point where she she doesn't believe that reggie is ever going to change she starts taking drugs going on pills she's kind of losing her mind losing it a little bit and the relationship is really starting to go downhill we have a scene there where uh where reggie craig roughs her up goes into the house and kind of gets physical and abusive with her because he doesn't like the fact that she's you know on pills or doing what she's doing it's bothering him because again he does love her he abuses her roughs her up a little bit and she leaves him and we see a scene where she packed her bag she's walking out she happens to run into ronnie out there they start to talk a little bit ronnie walks her to the car she says look i understand the relationship between you and your brother but she's had it she's gone as it moves on we see that she's really upset about this to the point where she can't live with reggie she can't live without him and she plans to kill herself and we see a scene with she's sitting on the bed taking pill after pill in this apartment and she does end up committing suicide and there's a very touching scene for me um her brother who was one of reggie's guys lets reggie into the room reggie sees francis dead in the bed he's broken up he sees her lying in the bed he walks over to where her jewelry is and takes her rings out and puts the rings he had given her back on her dead fingers and touching scene i mean it was really sad their relationship francis wanted him to go straight he just couldn't she couldn't deal with it and i can relate to that a little bit too i know situations where you know women just couldn't take the stuff that was going on you know with their guys in the mob life i mean you know i put my wife through a lot of difficult situations eight years in prison you know contract on my life it's it's very difficult for the women you know to survive in a situation like that and really keep their senses and she just couldn't handle it i mean in this case these guys you know reggie was in and out of trouble very very violent she witnessed a lot of it was just too much for her she couldn't live with him she couldn't live without him she took her own life and by the way um in in real life she really did she did commit suicide i think two years after reggie went to prison not quite the way it was in the in the movie but she did commit suicide that's how deeply this affected her and now as we get towards the end of the movie like in every other mob story situation everybody goes down payne becomes a witness you know their fixer guy like roy cohn uh he flips he uh joins the government many of the guys around the crates wins they flip and the indictments start to come down long story short uh ronnie does get indicted for the murder of george the rival guy uh gang guy um he goes to trial or i don't know if he goes to trial but he does get convicted uh but he is insane and he's put into a mental institution this time he can't get himself out of it and he's in that institution for quite some time until he passed away while in the institution i think he died of a heart attack in 1995. reggie ends up for murdering for other things extortion he ends up because he's got all these witnesses that flipped on him he goes to jail and i think he gets 30 years and i believe he died in in the year 2000 uh i think they let him out on a compassionate release and he died shortly after that you know it's funny i was thinking you know in uh in london in england you get 30 years for murders and all of that in in our country in america you get 3 000 years you know 300 years for the the similar crimes under the racketeering act so you know the sentences aren't as severe in europe and in many countries in europe as they are here in the united states prison conditions might be different but the sentences sentencing is lighter there but anyway it ends like every other mob story ends guys going to prison guys turning informant you know women getting the the the toughest end of of all of this stuff and it always ends bad and you know i always got to say it this way for any of you young people i know i have a lot of young people watching my youtube videos how do i know that because so many of you contact me from all over the world michael i'm doing an assignment michael i'm watching your youtube videos michael will you help me with an essay michael i'm fascinated with the mafia i get so many of these comments and messages and i tell you all the same thing crime does not pay in this country or anywhere else you stay in a life of crime you surround yourself with the wrong people you are going to go down no doubt about it a lot of people say well michael you made it don't look at me i am the exception i am not the rule i happen to be very blessed i think god played a major role in my life i transformed i became a follower of christ things changed for me i had a good woman who i'm married to for 37 years almost okay that that helped me transform my life it's a different situation but most everybody i know look at the list fortune magazine 50 most powerful gangsters mobsters whatever you want to call it okay 47 of them are dead in the last 30 years and many of them died in prison so you know i give you the same message all the time crime does not pay watch this movie and you'll know that this is not a lifestyle you'll ever want to live now i got a little bit of a connection to the craze and i'm going to tell you how a couple years back i was in england i was in the united kingdom and i had some speaking events there like 10 of them as a matter of fact and we're in london and we went and stayed in this little section of london called shortage and my daughter found this cool hotel it's me my wife and my daughter she found this great hotel it was called the courthouse and the reason it was called the courthouse because it was the courthouse at one time in london and they turned it into a great hotel right so we stayed there it was kind of a you know a real nifty section of of london it was really cool it was like um like greenwich village kind of thing you know it was really cool section loved it so we're in that hotel and uh man the service was unbelievable they're treating us like kings and i said man these people are great here you know wonderful and anyway in one section of the lobby since this was the courthouse they had three rooms and these three rooms were one-time cells they were holding cells and in one of the cells that's where they held the cray brothers when they were awaiting you know a case or trial and they had all the you know paraphernalian pictures and everything about the cray brothers in the cell so i love that stuff you know i spent a lot of time looking at in there so yes i spent time in the same jail cell as the cray brothers did fortunately i wasn't locked up i was a tourist at that point in time anyway we have a great time i got to tell you the end of this and we're ready to check out it's like 2 p.m you know on a certain day after a couple of days that we were there and we come down they had taken our luggage down we come into the lobby and there's the hotel manager and all the staff there to greet me and i said man what is this and the manager says mr francis it's really an honor to meet you and you know we were so happy that you stayed at our hotel and you know we knew who you were we didn't want to disturb you know they're very respectful they don't you know they're very respectful in in english very proper i would say and they had copies of my books they wanted me to sign it they said anytime you come back here so i was wondering why they treated us so well i mean it's a great hotel anyhow but it was just a great overall experience i happen to love london i happen to love the united kingdom people are great and you know my experiences there have been wonderful hope to be back there this year when i speak in denmark we're also going to the united kingdom so that's kind of my connection to the craze we were in the same jail cell together so that's it for that okay let me wrap up really quick um michaelfrances.com my community my crew 13 000 members encouraging one another all the time we always provide great content all is going good again blood covenant the book is back in stock yes i'll sign it for you i'll tell you right now you can buy it cheaper on amazon if you want my signature if that means anything to you i sign it personally no stamp and yes but get it anywhere you want i just wanted to let you know that it's uh it's available and um subscribers we're getting close i think we're almost up to 450 000 thanks to all of you you have a lot of content on youtube i appreciate you looking into mine thank you very much we had a big giveaway at 250 000. we're going to have a bigger giveaway at 500 000. i promise you it's gonna be great prizes as soon as we reach it and we're getting there maybe another month or so depending upon all of you if you like the content please subscribe you get alerts you'll get you know a little bit more information out of us so that's it i thank you all very very much for tuning in appreciate it very much i get asked about sammy we're in negotiation that's all i'm going to tell you may happen maybe not maybe so stay tuned you'll find out how do i always leave you be safe be healthy god bless and i will see you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 309,613

Rating: 4.9398317 out of 5

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mob, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, capo, caporegime, colombo, colombo family, colombo mafia, gambino, gambino family, bonanno, bonanno family, lucchese, lucchese family, genovese, genovese family, al capone, john gotti, gotti, american mafia, italian mafia, prison, federal prison, fat tony, sonny franzese, mob monday, mob movies, mob movie monday, mafia movies, why are mob movies so good, legend tom hardy, tom hardy movies, legend

Id: prPuJL-EoyI

Length: 33min 2sec (1982 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021