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Legend
- Director: Brian Helgeland
- Writer: Brian Helgeland
- Producer: Tim Bevan; Chris Clark
CGiii Comment
Helgeland co-won an Oscar for the L.A. Confidential screenplay.
Pity that this past success failed to materialise here. Perhaps, too English for an American!?!
Now, the gimmick of the film is that Tom Hardy plays both twins...yes, we agree, an interesting idea and a perfect example of casting.
But...does Mr Hardy pull it off? No...sadly.
He makes a valiant effort...but, the structure of the film denies him any opportunity to 'find' any depth to these well-documented characters. The characterisations are just too simplistic...one mumbles, one doesn't, one is oafish, the other isn't...glasses and Brylecreem add an extra differential...not to mention their sexualities! No mention of psychotic Ronnie's marital meanderings.
We see them, we don't feel them...there is no attempt to get beneath their skin...what really made them tick? It's almost as if the director/writer didn't care...obviously, he had a hate-based agenda.
The omissions and fabrications are a slap in the face to the corroborated facts. Too many liberties have been taken with the truth.
The fault lies - squarely and resoundedly - at the feet of the Helgeland...it's an episodic, facile treatment of crime...narrated by a dead woman! What a load of bollocks!
A diminished, discordant film.
Trailer...
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.
Cast & Characters
Tom Hardy as Ronald Kray / Reginald Kray;
Taron Egerton;
Emily Browning as Frances Shea;
Christopher Eccleston as Nipper Read;
David Thewlis;
Paul Anderson as Albert Donoghue;
Tara Fitzgerald;
Colin Morgan as Frankie / Franck Shea;
Chazz Palminteri as Angelo Bruno;
Aneurin Barnard as David Bailey;
Stephen Lord as Fuller