Sometimes, having an embedded narrator in a movie can work fantastically. The story of Legend is narrated by Francis, a lil ol’ cockney lass who falls for Reggie Kray. There is no cohesion, it is as if the film had forgotten where it was going and instead found itself dawdled around the grim back lanes and enticingly excessive clubs of the West End for the remaining hour and a half. As the film transitions into the second act, however, it all goes to shit. I loved the scene that gives us our first taste of Reggie’s club the camera work expertly makes the audience feel like they were a punter dodging their way through the cramped crowd. The first act of Legend is smooth and sleek: we revel in the criminal debauchery and welcome the occasional bout of explosive violence set to 60’s beats (some jazzy blungeoning, if you will).
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Perhaps the only comparable aspect of both films is running time, and although Legend runs a full 50 minutes shorter that Wolf of Wall Street, it sure felt much, much longer. That being said, I am by no means comparing the brilliance of Scorsese to Brain Helgeland’s (unexceptional) adaptation of the Kray brothers’ story. Mostly Legend just lurches.What is with our fascination with bad men? The Wolf of Wall Street was perhaps one of the most popular films of 2013, following the story of real-life fraudulent scumbag Jordan Belfort who has somehow gained love and acclaim from his depiction in the film. But that scene – smooth as butter, the film’s best – is the exception. When Helgeland holds his concentration, he delivers a nifty, unbroken slink through a nightclub that spotlights every side of Reggie’s warring personalities – the cool-headed club owner, the curling-fisted crime boss, and the sweet guy falling stupid in love. For the film itself, the measuring of time – how it unfolds onscreen, and what takes place offscreen – is a problem. The look is spot-on – these cat-eyelined ladies with their bouffants, hunched gangsters in smoky barrooms – yet Carter Burwell’s uncharacteristically plodding score is oddly out of time. It packs a punch, but it lends the film more gravitas then it’s probably earned. For much of the film, it’s a niggling question – why precisely is Helgeland favoring her perspective? Eventually, we get an answer. Together, these three make a combustible love triangle: the gangster turned accidental romantic, the girl who makes him promise he’ll go straight, and the unhinged gorilla he has pledged to protect since they shared a womb.Īs the Krays expand their empire, Frances supplies a running commentary via voiceover, spoon-feeding expository details (which turns out to be a boon between the heavy East End accents and Hardy’s signature growly mumble, the lack of enunciation renders whole chunks of dialogue unknowable), as well as filling in any blanks that writer/director Brian Helgeland (who won the Oscar for his script for L.A.
Hair-trigger Ronnie – he’s the one in glasses also: certifiably insane – moves with a thug’s lumber but sounds like he’s caught a permanent case of the sniffles. Reggie, the brains of the operation, has an easy gait and a confidential lean-in when he’s courting Frances (Browning), a delicate neighborhood girl who catches his eye.
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Hardy differentiates the two characters with his body and voice work, plus a helpful pair of Sixties-era browline spectacles. But if this movie makes it into his future highlight reel, it’ll be for level of difficulty, not because the film itself has made much of a bid for posterity. Two Tom Hardys for the price of one certainly sounds like a steal of a deal.
He’s been drawn to both of those types again and again ( Bronson, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Mad Max: Fury Road) and plays both here, pulling double duty as London’s infamous Kray twins, Reggie and Ronald. Probably – and one suspects rightfully – the word “legend” will be used five or six decades from now, when Tom Hardy dodders onstage to accept his lifetime achievement award for a screen career portraying criminals and psychopaths.