Legend (2015)
Country: GB/FR/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 132m
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Tara Fitzgerald, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston
Synopsis:
The rise and fall of the Kray twins, as seen through the eyes of Reggie's girlfriend, and later wife, Frances Shea.
Review:
Twenty-five years after The Krays ushered in a decade-long preoccupation with British gangsterism, Helgeland shifts the focus away from the Kray matriarch to that of a captivated outsider. He also one-ups Medak's film in meta terms by having the same actor play both twins; and Hardy's is an impressive performance, using more than wardrobe and makeup to capture the nuances of Reggie's teddy boy charm and latent violence as against Ronnie's less predictable, more articulate, psychosis. Whether there is enough drama here to sustain a more than two-hour running time is debatable, but this is a finely recreated portrait of an age which saw British organised crime reach for the heights of its US counterpart, with the same contamination of our public institutions.
Country: GB/FR/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 132m
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Tara Fitzgerald, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston
Synopsis:
The rise and fall of the Kray twins, as seen through the eyes of Reggie's girlfriend, and later wife, Frances Shea.
Review:
Twenty-five years after The Krays ushered in a decade-long preoccupation with British gangsterism, Helgeland shifts the focus away from the Kray matriarch to that of a captivated outsider. He also one-ups Medak's film in meta terms by having the same actor play both twins; and Hardy's is an impressive performance, using more than wardrobe and makeup to capture the nuances of Reggie's teddy boy charm and latent violence as against Ronnie's less predictable, more articulate, psychosis. Whether there is enough drama here to sustain a more than two-hour running time is debatable, but this is a finely recreated portrait of an age which saw British organised crime reach for the heights of its US counterpart, with the same contamination of our public institutions.
Country: GB/FR/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 132m
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Tara Fitzgerald, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston
Synopsis:
The rise and fall of the Kray twins, as seen through the eyes of Reggie's girlfriend, and later wife, Frances Shea.
Review:
Twenty-five years after The Krays ushered in a decade-long preoccupation with British gangsterism, Helgeland shifts the focus away from the Kray matriarch to that of a captivated outsider. He also one-ups Medak's film in meta terms by having the same actor play both twins; and Hardy's is an impressive performance, using more than wardrobe and makeup to capture the nuances of Reggie's teddy boy charm and latent violence as against Ronnie's less predictable, more articulate, psychosis. Whether there is enough drama here to sustain a more than two-hour running time is debatable, but this is a finely recreated portrait of an age which saw British organised crime reach for the heights of its US counterpart, with the same contamination of our public institutions.