SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It seems like for most people this movie is anything but "Legacy" building. But taking the performance by Idris Elba alone this should merit and have been scored higher. Add to that an unusual story that has more to deliver than the obvious and you actually should have a winner. Maybe people felt this was marketed like an action movie (when it's more a thriller with some guts and especially something worth to think about too), I can't tell.What I can say, is that the movie delivers on its thriller element and on being not only claustrophobic but getting you into the mind of Idris character. Not an easy feat, but achieved almost seamlessly by the movie. So while you might have issues with some of the directors choices in the story department, you might want to give this movie a chance! It deserves one

I didn't know anything about this film when I finally got to see it. Kermode never reviewed it, Metacritic doesn't list it and several other sites I read didn't either. The reason I was looking for it was that I am a fan of Idris Elba – not a fan of all his films necessarily but a fan of what he can do since I am familiar with him from his quite brilliant turn as The Wire's Stringer Bell. The news that the film also had some other HBO actors I know (Walker from Oz, Peters from The Wire, Pulver from True Blood) only made me want to see it more – Eamonn Walker in particular was more than enough. But essentially the reason I came to the film was Elba and other than that I didn't know what the plot was or what to expect. I'll be honest and say I had some worries for several reasons: firstly it is a joint production with a Nigerian company and the few Nollywood films I have seen have been poor; secondly it was called "Legacy Black Ops" when I heard of it and I worried that it was trying to cash in on the Black Ops name since this is a rather large video game at the moment.Anyway, despite my worries I actually quite enjoyed the film and found the 90 minutes to be mostly surprisingly gripping. Starting with a black ops mission that is going wrong we cut quickly to a cheap room in Brooklyn where one of the unit has holed up to complete "his mission". He talks to his video camera alone in his room; he is careful when he opens the door and he rarely answers the telephone. His ex (who married his brother while he was presumed dead) visits him in his room and he watches his brother (a presidential hopeful) being interviewed on TV. The structure of the film means we are mostly in the room that Malcolm has rented but we also have flashbacks to the mission he was on at the start of the film so that, while he follow his story now, we also see what has happened. What is happening now is that Malcolm appears to be trying to make up for his "sins" by exposing his brother's involvement in these black operations and in particular the fraud of a large sarin gas recovery on the East Coast by leaking details to a journalist. Throughout the film, in the time-honoured tradition, the pressure and the isolation appear to be taking their toll on Malcolm and his grip on sanity appears to be slipping.In this regard the film does tread a rather worn path but I still found it engaging. I have seen others on IMDb say it was too long but for me it only started to get obvious that reality was maybe blurring around the halfway mark and it was only 90 minutes long so it did interest me. Splitting the two timelines along the movie means that it does hold the interest in both regards but unfortunately as the film starts to come together it doesn't gel as I had hoped. The ending is far too sudden and the film has not quite done enough with Malcolm's guilt to make it accessible to the viewer to the point that we really understand him – more dialogue between Macolm and his brother would have been one way to overcome this and I was hoping that the scene with them both in his room would produce more spark and more emotion. It still works but the material really needed to be stronger for the second half and I did feel it fell short.One massive reason it still works though is Elba, and you can see why he took this low-budget movie made in Dumfries (Scotland) because the stage is his. Although the material doesn't give him everything he needs, he gets his delivery just right – gradually going from stable to unstable and with plenty of emotions to deliver. I enjoyed his performance a lot and I wish more films gave him the chance to show what he can do because he is a great actor. I know he is also in Thor at the moment and I hope that he can continue to get a good mix of small roles in large films and large roles in smaller films. The support cast are no slouches although they have less to do. Lie to Me's Curnen works well with Elba although she does inhabit this odd world that feels a little less real than it should in the early stages of the film. Peters is a solid presence – not sure what attracted him but he is a good find here. Walker disappointed me in terms of what he had to do – he is a good presence but the material lets him down as he is capable of more emotional range than he has here; like I said, his scene with Elba should have been so much more than it was – not just for the film's benefit but also for theirs as actors.Overall Legacy is engaging film even if you know roughly the road it is going down. The material lets it down by not all pulling together as it should in the final third but it is still engaging thanks in the main part to a great performance from Elba, who really nails his character and convinces in every scene, whether it be torture, action or breakdown.

This movie has a problem that many movies have: it's a story that could be told in less than an hour but the film makers felt they had to expand it to fit feature length. It's well made, and the acting is great, but it gets tiring very fast. The suspense sags and the ending just isn't justified by all the waiting. To compare it to Hitchcock is absurd. Malcolm is a psychologically wounded soldier back from a clandestine operation. He's holed up in a shabby hotel room fighting his demons. He was a member of a covert operation that went bad, he wound up killing the family of a terrorist, and then, to make things worse, was captured and tortured by the very terrorist whose family he had killed. We come to understand that he was betrayed, but who betrayed him? And was the betrayal necessary to protect the operation or was it just to cover someone's behind?Now he's escaped from an army medical facility and is mentally disintegrating by himself in that shabby room. Some elements of the film are hardly believable and what is real and what is imagined is never really clear. That war can have devastating psychological effects on soldiers is well known. But we also want to know the mechanics of the operation that went wrong, and the decisions that were made. The operation was set up in order to stop a dangerous terrorist who was in possession of a large quantity of sarin gas, and is intent on wiping out a major American city, at least the infidels who live in it. These details are in the background and are leaked out as the movie progresses, at least to the extent we can believe Malcolm, who is clearly delusional and drunk most of the time. Even in his right mind Malcolm may not know what happened at the highest levels. Meanwhile we have to watch Malcolm going crazy and telling his story in a rambling, confused videotape. The craziness, though skillfully performed, obscures our understanding the the story, so we're left wondering what really went down. We can sympathize with his pain. Brave soldiers can be scarred for life, but having to wait for plot elements to emerge while watching Malcolm disintegrate in his paranoia and guilt is excruciating. In fact, the only real suspense is wondering what Malcolm is finally going to do to resolve his dilemma. When the ending comes it's an anti-climax. There are no bad guys here (except the terrorists) and really no sense of justice because it's difficult to know for sure who was involved or what decisions were made. Moral clarity is something you need for a successful thriller, but here the moral lines are blurred.

Idris Elba is a brilliant actor, who has truly shown his amazing acting skills in Legacy. I was very impressed and blown away with your role as Malcolm Grey. The way you capture me in as if I was right there in the room with you. I laugh cried and wish I could have made it all better. Again you're very talented actor indeed. I wish you much success with your career. Thomas Ikimi wrote an excellent script. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future. I was disappointed that AMC Loews Jersey Garden 20 in Elizabeth, NJ did not have one poster of the movie Legacy in the theater. One would have not known Legacy was playing until it was time to purchase their tickets.