Legend

The(ir) Blurb...

From Academy Award® winner Brian Helgeland comes the true story of the rise and fall of London’s most notorious gangsters, Reggie and Ron Kray, both portrayed by Tom Hardy in an amazing double performance. LEGEND is a classic crime thriller taking us into the secret history of the 1960s and the extraordinary events that secured the infamy of the Kray Twins.

Tom Hardy stars as twin British gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray in this period drama inspired by the true story of their takeover of 1960s London. Ronnie is a paranoid schizophrenic who glories in the violence of the gangster lifestyle, and whose actions inadvertently bring about the downfall of the brothers’ criminal empire after he and boyfriend “Mad” Teddy Smith arrange for an incompetent wannabe gangster to kill the brothers’ business manager. At one point in the film, the brothers also blackmail a closeted member of Parliament, who was a regular attendee at orgies held by Ronnie, as part of their plan to be acquitted of murder charges. The orientation of the real-life Ronnie has not been consistently identified, as he described himself as gay and bisexual at different times. For the purposes of this report, GLAAD has counted Ronnie as a gay character, as that is what the film asserts. Notably for the time, his relationship with Teddy is also widely accepted by everyone except the brothers’ rivals, whose use of anti-gay slurs is positioned as only one more reason for audiences to dislike the group. Many Hollywood films have long linked mental illness and LGBT identities, but Legend makes it clear that Ronnie’s schizophrenia and hyper-violent personality are not tied to his sexual orientation.

What a load of badly-written drivel.