I like Brian Helgeland’s writing. I haven’t seen the film he won his Oscar for, “L.A. Confidential,” but I’m a fan of “Man on Fire” and “42.” I’m not much a fan of his 2015 gangster biopic, “Legend,” a film that tells the story of the Kray twins, Reginald (Tom Hardy) and Ronald (also Tom Hardy), who terrorized London in the 1960s.
I’ll talk about it eventually anyway, so I’ll just talk about the best part of “Legend” straight away—and that’s Tom Hardy’s dual performance. Watching him make these two characters feel so distinct from each other is masterclass. He completely elevates this material, and without him this would have been straight-up bad for me.
As Reggie, he’s grounded and threatening, the mastermind of the operation who keeps everything going smoothly. His performance as Ronnie is more interesting. Ronnie is certified insane and therefore a complete wild card and hurts their business more than helps it. His voice is more distinct as Ronnie, too, and at times it sounds similarly to his performance as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” just without the mask. The way he talks with his bottom teeth showing is also creepy for some reason. It’s also easy to tell that it’s Ronnie because he has glasses and usually has a confused look on his face.
The character dynamic between the twins is interesting and how the writing deals with their loyalty is the most fascinating thing here. They fight constantly and Reggie knows Ronnie is horrible for their business, but he can’t do anything about that because they’re brothers. Ronnie brings an air of unpredictability to this because he can do anything at any time, and his general mistrust of their banker, Leslie Payne (David Thewlis), is interesting. It’s also interesting to learn about Ronnie and how open he is about his sexuality in the 1960s, and that brings some humour when he tells Angelo Bruno (Chazz Palminteri), who wants to help make London the Las Vegas of Europe, that he likes boys and not girls.
Taron Egerton plays his sort-of boyfriend, sort-of entourage named Teddy. He doesn’t get much to do and it’s weird seeing him in a “smaller” role after his breakout in “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” but “Legend” was filmed first.
Also contributing to the film’s idea of loyalty is Reggie’s marriage with Frances (Emily Browning). Browning’s character is also the narrator for the film, filling in any exposition holes and helping the story flow. Browning plays the role fine, though we never really get to know her and their relationship seems much more interesting in real-life than what is depicted here.
There’s a point where Reggie rapes and physically assaults Frances and I just didn’t buy this arc for Reggie because it completely comes out of nowhere. The characters barely interact during their marriage (which only lasts eight weeks but there’s no sense of this), and then he just rapes her. It’s awkward and apparently is fiction entirely, so it’s a lazy storytelling device that doesn’t feel realistic in the first place.
Apparently Ronnie was jealous of the relationship in real-life, and a bit more of that in the story would have been interesting; and if Helgeland actually wrote it more like real-life, this would have been great because the fictional approach feels much less exciting. The film mostly uses Frances as a storytelling device to show Reggie’s loyalty to Ronnie, as Frances wants Reggie to live an honest life, but Ronnie likes having his gangster brother. The most realistic part about Reggie’s character is seeing that he likes the gangster life. Some of this gangster action is solid, like a gritty bar fight with a rival gang where Ronnie uses a pair of hammers and Reggie uses brass knuckles. Even the contrast of those two weapon choices could show the film’s attempt at showing their sanity, though in real-life Reggie was equally as unstable.
There’s an obvious rift between the twins and it gets interesting near the end and that dynamic feels explosive, but there’s just far too much of “Legend” that feels like a standard biography film. There’s a lot here that’s boring, too, or just doesn’t do as much as it should. That includes Christopher Eccleston as Nipper Read, the cop on their case, but even he feels inconsequential in the story because they just get out of prison maybe 10 minutes later in the film’s timeline.
The direction by Helgeland is solid, especially when he sets up a bit with Jack McVitie (Sam Spruell) where whenever he screws up and Reggie gives him a cigarette, he gets punched in the face. Later, when the same thing happens, the look on McVitie’s face when Reggie takes out a cigarette to give him is good for a laugh. The film just falls apart with Reggie’s character arc, and I don’t think Helgeland paints as strong as a picture about the Kray twins as he could have.
