WATCH NOW
The Kray Brothers, Reggie and Ronnie, were such loudmouth thugs that they became a parody of themselves. They both just got incarcerated when the Monty Python’s Flying Circus decided to do a parody on the two of them in the comedy sketch called The Piranha Brothers aka Doug and Dinsdale. The thing about that particular sketch is that it really didn’t have to deviate that much from reality in order to be funny. Regardless, the Krays were in fact in charge of the gangster scene in London from the end of the 50s to the year 1968 , when they were sent to jail for their crimes; this career trajectory including inflicting real and extensive human damage that Brian Helgeland, who created a new crime film about the twins, doesn’t seem to be having any productive to say about this either. But that is not the reason for the mess that the “Legend” is right from the beginning to begin with.
From the get-go, it is a hot mess due to Helgeland’s idolization of Martin Scorsese which should not be the case when one does not possess Scorsese’s finesse. As the movie starts, Reggie Kray, who can be portrayed as the more kid-friendly among the two lunatics, starts dancing with Frances, the lady he plans to marry. To add a twist, Helgeland decides to throw in a bit of “GoodFellas” The couple moves in as Reggie’s “friends” come in to pay their friend a visit while a camera attached to a helicopter conveniently starts zooming out and gliding side to side to follow Reggie as he takes Frances out to the “kingpin” pub. If this was enough, there was a second cringeworthy blunder when a random singer out of nowhere started belting “The Look of Love” which was not even created before the events of the scene occurred but let us not deep dive into that. By now we should have been expecting it, but Helgeland was basing scenes from one of the greatest gangster movies of all time, and this little individual has the audacity to create an imitation. But what adds to the bluntness of it all is the cringeworthy “The Look of Love” performance by the singer which in all honesty was the longest rendition of that song ever because not only did that involve slapping together a bunch of random sounds which were deemed music when the editor didn’t find it to their liking.
This is just one of the many instances of the film getting outlandishly absurd, and even considering what an immaculate job Helgeland carried out in regards to both writing and managing the departments in his last picture, the 2013 Jackie Robinson story “42,” this is still shockingly out of place.
Tom Hardy is undoubtedly the most compelling part of the movie and easily becomes the submission point of conversation, particularly as he plays both twins. Reggie is sleek and self-assured, Ronnie on the other hand is a sadistic and paranoid schizophrenic; Lenny from ‘Of Mice And Men’ if he were an east Londoner who has evil tendencies. They are modern but muddled portrayals, not the spell binding turns they could have been. This is once again Helgeland’s weak writing coming back to haunt him and blaming him, especially with the unimaginative (and, I can only presume, rather practical) orientation of the two Hardys in the scenes where they’re interacting: at times the dual performance comes off as a gimmicky stunt but rather atime the standard (and I assume quite practical) orientation of the two Hardys in the scenes where they’re interacting: at times the dual performance comes off as a gimmicky stunt.
There’s also the strange interplay of Hardy’s split performance, which nearly never manages to coalesce, but for occasional moments when Hardy has managed to strike out, and even then, it is far from cohesive. At one point in the film, Chazz Palmentieri, portraying an American mafia member types who is a strong devotee to Chicago beef, reaches out to the twins and urges them to be open to accepting the Ronnie’s hostility. It’s the scene where Ronnie directly addresses the wise guy about his unmasked sexual outlook that everything begins to make sense. Along with Hardy’s Reggie, who roams the streets pretending to be violent with an unknown reason, but at the end, breaks the silence to explain to his never understood how violent he could be towards Reggie.
We as viewers are constantly being distracted at the snap of fingers because moments like these are super nice but moments like these are super nice but having wedding scenes with the lyrics from ‘Chapel of Love’ is super annoying. There was also Frances who married Reggie, the briefly introduced lady helped the movie move towards its awful phase.
Helgeland’s vision of Frances is rather dull on two accounts. Firstly, she is given the responsibility of a semi-omniscient narrator that is filled with cliches such as “It was time for the Krays to enter the secret history of the 1960s” and “Not even Scotland Yard could ignore murder on the street,” The latter quite eerily resembles the portion of Piranha Brothers sketch where the gangsters set of a nuke over London. Secondly, even though Emily Browning might have acted well, she is given no special depth than that of any of the whining gangster or undercover cop wives from the dozens of crime flicks over the years. When he attempted to create a link between her and the character I also found it rather disturbing. For all of the kindness that I’m about to say, Helgeland’s final trick with this character is all the more unacceptable to me. I acquainted myself with the case of the Krays to various degrees before walking into the screening but it certainly was not the core focus while I was watching the film, And then I thought … wait a minute. As I hoped, … the same is true.
Spoiler alert: Frances Shea was married to Reginald Kray for a couple of years and then in 1967, she took her own life.
The last fifth of the film does involve Frances-as-narrator playing a bit of ‘gotcha’ with the audience, and yes, this is evident in the movie. I find the act of turning an actual suicide into your own Joe Gillis for the sake of…well that’s the other thing is quite amusing both aesthetically and morally. That is, I do not know what “Legend” was created for. It is a sordid tale that lacks much in the way of an action filled self-centered view, and thus, a squandering of its very capable supporting cast.
To watch more movies like Legend visit 123Movies.
Also Watch for more movies like:
