Legend is directed by Brian Helgeland and stars Tom Hardy (one of my favourite actors working today) as both Ronnie and Reggie Kray, twins who ruled the criminal underworld of 1960s London. Legend tells the story of their rise to prominence whilst also examining the pernicious relationship between the twins which eventually led to their downfall and their life imprisonment. Legend is not just a crime drama with excellent performances by an incredibly talented lead actor, it's also a weird amalgamation of thrills, comedy and romance.
There's a lot going on in Legend. While I feel I took out a lot of positives from my experience watching this movie, Legend was still a let down for me. I can summarise it as simply as this; first half good, second half bad. The first half of Legend is fantastic to sit through. It's energetic and bursting with personality, accomplishing a fine balance of thrills and comedy, effortlessly blending them together. The second half of Legend loses a lot of the self-achieved momentum from the first half, and very nearly falls apart. At least it would have done if not for the acting brilliance of Tom Hardy.
Hardy takes to the challenge of playing two different characters like a duck to water. It's not often that I can say an actor gives not one but two incredible performances in one film, but Tom Hardy makes it look easy. He has multiple scenes in which he has nothing to act to but himself (or at least his own mental take on the other character) and because it is shot so well, edited so seamlessly and acted so brilliantly, the performances come across as perfectly natural. I think this is also in part due to the differences between the twins; Reggie is a more reserved and calculated mind with his club enterprise being the most important thing whereas Ronnie adopts a more psychopathic and bloodthirsty approach to proceedings. This ideological conflict that erupts between these two characters is for sure the most emotionally investing and intriguing thing Legend accomplishes.
It's also a gorgeous looking movie with a purposefully sleek and authentic look to it thanks to the detailed production design and the use of breathtaking tracking shots. The accompanying musical score is also very good, as is the editing and stunt-work put into the fight sequences. They don't pull any punches when it comes to violence. One fight scene which stood out to me happened around the halfway mark which saw both Ronnie and Reggie fighting in Reggie's club. It took me a while to remember that Hardy was actually fighting himself! Such is the convincing nature of Hardy's performances.
The romantic aspect of the narrative takes centre stage in the film's second half more so than in the first. As a result, the film's pacing drags towards the end simply because the character of Reggie's wife, played by Emily Browning, simply isn't that interesting or well fleshed out. There is an immediate let up of thrills and comedy (mainly because Ronnie seems to see less screen time in these exchanges) and the film seems to limp over the line.
I thought that the general balance of plotlines and subplots were handled very well in the film's first half. However, as the romance took centre stage and various other narrative changes took place, the ending of the film became very jumbled and messy in my opinion. A lot of the minor plotlines they set up do have resolution, it's just the movie's structure doesn't really allow for a necessary emotional pay-off that it needed.
If I'm being honest I have to admit that Legend was a let down due to the second half of the film which paled in comparison to the first. A decrease in effective drama, thrills and comedy dragged out the film's pacing, which led to an over-complication of plotlines and a lot of very boring scenes which don't pay off as well as they should do. However, Legend still offers a lot to like. If you're not impressed by the clever editing or mobile cinematography, you will be impressed by the efforts of Tom Hardy. Nailing all the various mannerisms, speech patterns, ideological stances etc. of both his characters, he probably delivers one of the best acting jobs of 2015. It's just a shame the screenplay didn't allow Legend to have a strong and memorable finish:
Rating - C+
A film of two halves, in more ways than one!
Thanks for reading,
Matt
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