Legend – Action

The Synopsis

It’s the 1960s. Reggie Kray, a former boxer who has become an integral part of the criminal underground in London, visits his twin brother Ron who is locked up in a psychiatric hospital for insanity and paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie uses a tactic for which the twins are famous for and threats to obtain the premature release of his brother, who is rapidly discharged from the hospital. The two brothers unite their efforts to control a large part of London’s criminal underworld. One of their first efforts is to muscle-in on the control of a local nightclub, using extortion and brutal violence. Reggie meets Frances, his driver’s sister who he eventually dates and marries. But not long after they are married he is imprisoned for a previous criminal conviction, which he cannot evade. While Reggie is in prison, Ron’s mental continuing instability and violent temperament lead to financial setbacks at the club.  Almost forced to close after Ron is scaring away most customers. When Reggie is released from prison, the two brothers, after a disagreement fight, but they manage to partially patch things up. The brothers are approached by Angelo Bruno from America who, on behalf of Meyer Lanski and the Mafia, wants to interest them in a syndicate deal through crime. Bruno agrees to a fifty-fifty deal with Reggie to split London’s underground gambling profits in exchange for local protection from the Kray brothers. The system is highly lucrative for the Kray brothers. Ron’s barely concealed volatility results in him publicly murdering George Cornell, an associate of the Torture gang, rivals of the Krays. The Police, as a result, opens a full investigation of the Kray brothers. Frustrated Reggie beats and rapes Frances and she leaves him. Reggie then approaches her to start afresh offering her a holiday to Ibiza but it’s too late and instead, she is found dead after committing suicide with an overdose of prescription drugs. The brother’s criminal activities continue and Ron pays petty criminal, Jack (the hat) Mcvite to kill Leslie Payne, Reggie’s partner who controls the legal side of the Kray’s operations. He only wounds Payne, who then turns the brothers over to Detective Superintendent “nipper” Read, the head of the investigation. Reggie finds out and brutally stabs McVitie during a party hosted by Ron. The testimony given by Payne means that Ron is arrested and charged with Cornell’s murder. The final scene shows a police squad breaking down the door to Reggie’s flat in order to apprehend him for McVitie’s murder.

The Review

Legend is an adaptation of John Pearson’s Book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins. The Krays were notorious gangsters in ’60s London. Twins they were synonymous with crime. There is almost a mythical nature around their story and so the film title “legend” tells their story well. The film is narrated by Emily Browning, who plays Frances Shea in the film. This was a very interesting choice as this would have been impossible given the fact that Frances had committed suicide during the film, but never the less this gives an interesting insight into the twins even though it is a little glorified with “gangster prince” being an abjective used. Personally, I like the way the film has been made, it begins when the twins are already in control of the east end and the police are quite clearly on their tail. I am also very impressed at how Tom Hardy has managed to take on both twins, who are very different as you can see during the film. There are a couple of things that really stand out in this film that makes it for me. It will never be a gangland great like The Godfather, but arguably the Krays weren’t to some extent that powerful as gangsters and more often than not classed as crude businessmen.  What it can do is bring a good form of comedy and wit to the table which you might not expect, scenes like the fight scene within the pub, although it is a very serious part within the history of the Kray twins Ronnie’s mental unstableness really brings comedy to the scene. mentioning a shootout like a western and Geronimo and Custer, Fanny Cradock and even Reggie joking as Ronnie sneaks in saying a schizophrenic walked into the bar.

 

The comedy ultimately leads to the brawl in the pub and to the director’s credit, the film goes rapidly into sarcasm and comedy to violence with Ronnie biting and blood everywhere. The cinematography and special effects have to work well here as well as editing and dialogue which couldn’t have been easy. With Tom Hardy playing both brothers, special effects have to be realistic enough to be able to see both brothers in one shot, When filming the camera work would have to be done well enough to allow for the other brother to be placed through CGI. The dialogue is seamless enough to allow us to believe that there are in fact two actors but that is also down to the editing of the film which has to be amazingly well stitched together to be able to keep the audience happy with the effects. There couldn’t have been a better challenge for the film as the scene where both Ronnie and Reggie fight together. It seems utterly crazy to want to have one actor play two people and fight with each other in one scene, but it is an incredible scene. Although it doesn’t really play any significant part in the story of the two of them, it does show how they clash even though they were so close. For me, it has to be one of the best scenes in the film. There is pace, there are great special effects. It includes a little comedy and it includes great cinematography with camera work and editing adding to the pace of the scene. The storyline set aside this is some great filmmaking and should set a great benchmark in creating two people on screen from one actor at one time.

 

I enjoyed watching the film and I do think that the film brings a fresh take on the Krays story. I love history and I love anything to do with history so I was aware of their story prior to watching the film, although it wasn’t that long ago set in the ’60s. There are lots of stories of the Krays and it is all very mystical with nobody able to distinguish fact from fiction, and having watched the film whether the director intended to, it plays on this. It is almost romanticizing what they were. They were at the end of the day Murders, using extortion and violence to control the east end and then the west end. The director did well to tell their story, it is a story of the Krays I have not seen before with the focus I believe is the relationship between the brothers and how they coped with Ronnie being mentally unwell. In some ways the film helps unravel Ronnies mentality and asks the question would they have been more businessmen than gangsters if it weren’t for Ronnie. The directors left that for your decision. The Production was well made again looking very authentic. Plenty of action, comedy, and violence as you would expect from the twins. But the real heroes of the film, in my opinion, are those who worked with the editing, the filmi, g and the special effects to help bring both Ronnie and Reggie alive as two people in front of our eyes.