Legend *** (2015, Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Taron Egerton) – Movie Review

Legend offers Tom Hardy an eagerly and exuberantly taken chance for a bravura star turn in twin roles as 1960s identical twin East End gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray (‘We’re talking about being gangsters, that’s what we are!’)

Hardy is a grand actor and is certainly the film’s main attraction – by some way. It is brilliant the way Hardy goes about developing the two lookalikes and making them into different, vibrant characters, interacting with each other. He makes you believe that both men are on screen at the same time throughout. There’s no sense of CGI trickery at all. The effort of playing the two roles just doesn’t show. Brilliant!

This results in one astounding, fully-fleshed acting performance, the one where he plays Reggie. The other performance is a turn, a brio one, but a turn. It’s a pity that this is the gay brother Ronnie (‘I prefer boys. Italians, sometimes Greek, but I am not prejudiced.’)

Indeed, it’s a pity that Ronnie was gay, he’s a disgrace to the tribe, a shocking blot on the landscape, and Hardy plays him without sympathy or pity as an impetuous madman, but as a comical one, the Arthur Mullard of crime. Indeed, there’s a vague stale whiff of anti-gayness over the film that is probably inevitable given Ronnie’s kind of gay lifestyle (at least as shown here).

On the other hand, Reggie is shown as a madman too, but Hardy plays him sympathetically, fuelling the wrong-headed idea of the Krays as simply London Robin Hood characters. Their deeds are shown in much appalling detail, but the film refuses to condemn them, indeed it adds to their glossy legend of the title. Turning the Krays into some kind of heroes isn’t a good thing at all.

By coincidence, American writer/director Brian Helgeland wrote the screenplay and story of the 2010 Robin Hood. Helgeland is generally a brilliant screenwriter. He won an Oscar for L.A. Confidential (1997) and was nominated for Mystic River (2003). But he seems to be struggling here as writer, unsure of the East End, London gangsters, the legend.

He bases the screenplay on a book by John Pearson called The Profession of Violence, and tells the story from the point of view of Mrs Reggie Kray, Frances Shea, played by Australian actress Emily Browning. There’s endless clumsy exposition in the voiceover, especially at the start and end to clue us all in on the Krays story, especially there for Americans.

[Spoiler alert] Telling its from Frances’s point of view weakens the impact of the story and, when she’s dead, she carries on narrating the story, in an annoying device that might work in American fictional film noir but doesn’t work here at all. The film rambles on too long, to 131 minutes, with about three perfect endings before it finally limps on to stop, followed by the inevitable cards to tell you what finally happened. Clumsy or what?

Despite the story being told by her appallingly abused and pathetic character and seen through her eyes, poor Browning doesn’t really get a look in. It’s the Tom Hardy Show, and he’s not going to let anyone else get much of a look in. Except perhaps David Thewlis as the Krays’ accountant / business manager Leslie Payne. Thewlis is good.

Taron Egerton plays Teddy Smith, Paul Bettany is rival gangster Charlie Richardson, Christopher Eccleston is copper Nipper Read, Chazz Palminteri is American gangster Angelo Bruno and Jane Wood is the beloved mother Violet Kray. They’re there on screen but make no particular impression in stereotyped or thinly sketched roles.

The film ends up an also-ran to The Krays (1990) with Gary and Martin Kemp, and a brilliant screenplay by Philip Ridley. But, as the Tom Hardy Show, Legend is a must-see. This will only add to his legend too.

Obviously it’s adult viewing, rated R for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual and drug material.

The pub used as the infamous Blind Beggar in Whitechapel is Tuners Old Star in Wapping with many of the light fittings changed or re-painted. The square brewery signs are original and the screen mounted on top of the bar is real but some of it was removed for the cameras.

Alex Giannini, who plays US mobster Antonio Caponigro, known as Tony Bananas, died aged 52, shortly before he was due to take to the stage in Plymouth on 2 October 2015. He was married to  the daughter of Welsh funnyman Sir Harry Secombe.

There are two other new films on the subject in 2015: The Rise of the Krays and The Fall of the Krays.

http://derekwinnert.com/the-krays-1990-gary-kemp-martin-kemp-billie-whitelaw-classic-movie-review-1992/

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2893

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