Legend tells the story of twin brothers Ron and Reggie Kray (both played by Tom Hardy). In the 1960s,the brothers ran the criminal underworld in London out of the East End. The movie starts with Ron being sprung from a stint in a mental hospital. Together again, the brothers go on to become the most powerful gangsters in London, and end up running legitimate businesses that has them rubbing elbows with the rich and the famous. But this forms a edit between the twins, as the increasingly unstable Ron becomes uneasy with this more benign version of criminality. Meanwhile, Reggie is contemplating a more peaceful life with his girlfriend Frances (Emily Browning), who is urging the gangster to go straight.
The guiding voice of this narrative actually belongs to Frances, whose voiceover hangs over the film at key moments, often explaining themes that really should be self-evident. The film ends up needing this extra narration in order to hold its plot together, which drifts from event to event without any real thematic binding. Like so many movies based on true events, Legends ends up trying to cover too much ground, and the end result is an unmanageable narrative that becomes a test of patience by the end.
The narrative really spreads itself thin. It splits its attention between the growing rift between the brothers, the relationship between Reggie and Frances, and the growth of the criminal empire. And in all three aspects of the narrative, the movie never gets to linger long enough to actually make something out of any of it. This is one of those films where things just keep happening, with very little time spent contemplating what these events actually mean in the long run. By the third act, the narrative just doesn’t have enough momentum to reach the climax.
In terms of filmmaking, the film recalls gangster movie classics, particularly Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The references are more than a little obvious. There is clearly a lot of skill involved in paying homage to that film, but it would have been preferable for this film to leave its own stamp on the genre. And there is a digital sheen to the whole thing that doesn’t quite match up with the aesthetics. All in all, this isn’t a bad looking film, however. It just doesn’t always feel like the shots are actually serving the story.
The single best thing about this movie is Tom Hardy, who is just terrific in the dual roles. We get to see Hardy here as both charming leading man and strange character actor. Even if the two brothers weren’t costumed differently, it wouldn’t too hard to tell them apart. Hardy lends both characters very distinct personalities that go well beyond the visual. This is a real masterclass in acting, and it almost makes the whole thing worth seeing. Backed up with the likes of Emily Browning and David Thewlis, the movie certainly does not lack for acting talent.
But the acting alone isn’t enough to save Legend. It ends up feeling pretty thin, in spite of the richness of the material. The movie seems to get caught up in paying homage to the genre greats, and forgets to establish its own voice. It just starts drifting through history, hoping that the familiar language of gangster cinema is enough to get across the heady themes that develop from the story of these brothers. But it never really gets there. Legend ends up having to explain what it means through voiceover narration, and that is the clearest indication of its failures.
My Rating:
