Legend

Legend (18)

USA/UK 2015 131 mins Dir: Brian Helgeland Cast: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton

‘When the truth becomes legend, print the legend.’ So ran the famous quote from John Ford’s 1962 Western masterpiece The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. One of the reasons why Ford’s classic film has endured for so long is its complex and troubling dissection of celebrity and mythology – something that writer/director Brian Helgeland’s new Kray twins film, glibly titled Legend, is sadly unable to achieve.

That the movie feels lacking in the script department is surprising: Helgeland adapted James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential to Oscar winning success in 1997, gifting us one of the greatest book-to-screen adaptations ever witnessed. In part a ruthless dissection of Los Angeles police force corruption, in part a searing Hollywood satire, Helgeland’s script expertly picked apart the knotty, meaty themes of Ellroy’s source. However, when it comes to the 1960s London milieu of Legend, it feels like the filmmaker is playing in somebody else’s sandpit, aping British gangster movie clichés to only fitfully successful effect.

However, the movie does have one formidable weapon in its arsenal: Tom Hardy. The mercurial, dynamic British actor tears up the screen and provides the movie a much-needed lease of life in his dual roles as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the so-called ‘gangster princes’ of the East End. Narrated by Emily Browning as Reggie’s eventual wife Frances, the movie begins with the Krays having already established a measure of violent authority, proceeding to chart their turbulent sibling relationship (including Ronnie’s homosexuality), their dealings with the American Mafia (here embodied by a welcome Chazz Palminteri) and their ascent to the top of the criminal tree.

Resplendent in enough swinging sixties mod tunes, glitzy club interiors and lemon sherbert references to make an American tour party happy, the film certainly looks handsome, if somewhat stagey. The movie’s airless, theatrical atmosphere only serves to throw greater emphasis on Hardy’s explosive central performance(s): although the feat of getting the same actor doubled up on the same screen is hardly as revolutionary as the trailers make out (David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers utilised the technique to much more unsettling effect), the actor’s typical physicality makes the contrast between the methodical Reggie and the venomous Ronnie all the more intriguing. If his role as the former is ultimately more gripping for its (relative) understatement, the latter is what’s set to grab the most attention, his roaring Ronnie approaching such horrifying magnitude that the performance spills over into black comedy.

It’s a good thing Helgeland has such a superb performer at his disposal because taken on its own terms, the script is sorely lacking. Never quite able to make up its mind as to how we’re meant to interpret the Krays (are they glamorous? Reptilian?), the movie also fails to justify its own existence. What exactly is it telling us about this period in British history? Why is it important? And what is the movie ultimately trying to tell us about the uneasy relationship between the nature of violence and that of celebrity? Unfortunately, not much.

The reliance on Browning’s hamfisted voiceover (not the fault of the actress, who copes well under the circumstances) certainly smacks of a last minute attempt to impose context on a film that would be sorely lacking without it. The name ‘Kray’ could easily be overdubbed with a generic moniker and the movie would lose next to no impact. With a raft of excellent actors like Christopher Eccleston (playing relentless detective ‘Nipper’ Read) and David Thewlis (as the Krays’ financial adviser Leslie Payne) stranded by flimsy material, it ultimately falls to Hardy to salvage a superficially entertaining albeit shallow biopic.