Legend (2015)

Genre

Biography | Crime | Drama

Director

Brian Helgeland

Country

UK | France | USA

Cast

Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton, Chazz Palminteri, Paul Bettany, Colin Morgan, Tara Fitzgerald, Aneurin Barnard, Paul Anderson, Duffy, Kevin McNally, John Sessions, Alex Giannini, Sam Spruell

Storyline

The true story of London's most notorious gangsters, twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray (Tom Hardy). As the brothers rise through the criminal underworld, Ronnie advances the family business with violence and intimidation while Reggie struggles to go legitimate for local girl Frances Shea (Emily Browning).

Opinion

The story of the Kray twins is very fascinating, but Brian Helgeland doesn't manage to do it justice with "Legend", this mediocre film that would have been unwatchable if it wasn't for Tom Hardy's performances.

While the trailers were great and made me had quite high expectation for it, the film mainly fails because instead of telling the story of the Kray twins like one would have expected - let's be honest here, I, and I bet everyone else, was expecting a gangster film - it tells a story whose central character is Frances Shea, Reggie's girl, and the entire story is told from her point of view.

Director Brian Helgeland seems to focus more on the relationship between Reggie and Shea, than the actual criminal life, thus resulting in some things Reggie says and does that doesn't make a lot of sense. And Reggie and Ronnie's stories are never really told.

Another disappointing thing is that "Legend", even though the pacing is quite slow yet the film is never boring, builds tension towards a climatic end that does never really happen.

I will give Helgeland credits though for recreating this noir-looking London, and for trying to bring gangster movies back.

As I mentioned above, the best part of the film is Tom Hardy's performances. Like he has done before, he completely disappears into the characters, delivering a more humorous performance as Reggie Kray and a more powerful and quite intimidating one as Ronnie Kray.

Ultimately "Legend" may not be a great film, but it's definitely worth checking out because of two of Hardy's best performances.