Review: Legend
"They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world...and me and my brother ruled London. We were...untouchable," Ronnie Kray wrote in his autobiography, My Story. This was no hyperbolic self-aggrandising. Ronnie and his twin brother Reggie were the dark princes of London, their reign as bloody and violent as any in royal history. Their grasp extended past the underground, reaching into the hallowed halls of Parliament and intertwining with the celebrity culture of the day.
The Krays have never completely left their country's public consciousness, resurfacing every now and again in newspaper articles, books, theater plays, song lyrics, TV programmes, and films. Legend, written and directed by Brian Helgeland, is the latest to depict the twin terrors. If films were judged on performance alone, then Legend would be an unequivocal masterwork for Tom Hardy turns in not one, but two stellar portrayals as both Ronnie and Reggie Kray. (Previous film versions featured different actors playing each twin - Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp and Martin Kemp in 1990's The Krays; Simon Cotton and Kevin Leslie in 2015's The Rise of the Krays and the recently completed The Fall of the Krays.) Yet films are more than showcases for award-caliber performances. Legend is an unsatisfying and nebulous work, perfectly content to skim the surface and leaving all the heavy lifting to Hardy.
The film is narrated by Frances Shea (Emily Browning), who met Reggie at 16 and married him at 22. It's an interesting tactic which should serve to not only view a male-dominated milieu through the eyes of a character normally relegated to the sidelines, but also to set up the semi-incestuous triangle between Reggie, Frances and Ronnie. Moreover, by positioning Frances in a more significant role, it would also allow a first-person perspective on the dangers of being seduced by the charismatic but horrible piece of work that was Reggie Kray. The problem with this device is that it is either redundant, expository without actually explaining anything, and just plain illogical (though the reason for the lack of logic will be revealed later in the film). As a character, Frances makes no sense and her trajectory from lovestruck girl to the pill-popping, emotionally and physically abused wife is choppily detailed. Helgeland does not have to show every little step of the journey, but he should know enough to build a bridge here and there.
Unlike the 1990 film directed by Peter Medak, Legend eschews the brothers' childhood to concentrate on the highlights and lowlights of their heyday - the turf war with the Richardson gang, the notorious South London gang headed up by Charlie Richardson (Paul Bettany); the scandal with conservative peer Lord Boothby (John Sessions), with whom the openly homosexual Ronnie was purported to have had an affair; their dealings with the North American mafia, represented by Angelo Bruno (Chazz Palminteri); and the murders of George Cornell (Shane Attwooll) and Jack "The Hat" McVitie (Sam Spruell), which would lead to the Krays' eventual downfall. Helgeland doesn't spare viewers from the brothers' raging brutality - McVitie is repeatedly stabbed with a carving knife by Reggie and Ronnie bashes members of the Richardson gang with a hammer during the infamous brawl at the Blind Beggar pub. No battle is more disturbing than the no-holds-barred fight between the brothers - Ronnie grabbing and lifting Reggie by the crotch and Reggie breaking his brother's nose - which ends in an embrace that can be read as either desperate brotherly love or suffocating entrapment.
The bloodletting is lovingly detailed as is the period setting. Particularly praiseworthy is Caroline Harris' costuming of Ronnie and Reggie. Even if Hardy's portrayals had been sub-par, one could have easily delineated one brother from the other. Reggie's suits are exquisitely tailored and worn with ease whilst Ronnie's are slightly ill-fitting, emphasising his more bulldog demeanour. The clothes are but a small part of what makes Hardy's achievement so astonishing. As Reggie, he is as magnetic as he is menacing. As Ronnie, he may be fretful and paranoid, but he is also terrifyingly liberated in his violent and sexual impulses. His frankness about his homosexuality (Ronnie admitted to being bisexual) indicates not only a lack of shame but a willingness to go past the boundaries of convention, and it is that matter-of-factness that unnerves and unsettles those around him. If only Helgeland had matched Hardy's level and aimed for something darker and more complicated, then Legend would have been a modern gangster classic instead of a shallow retread.
Legend
Directed by: Brian Helgeland
Written by: Brian Helgeland; based on John Pearson's The Profession of Violence
Starring: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, David Thewlis, Paul Bettany, Chazz Palminteri, Colin Morgan, Taron Egerton, Sam Spruell, Tara Fitzgerald, John Sessions
