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The Kray Brothers, Reggie and Ronnie, were such ostentatiously violent and vulgar gangsters that they practically constituted a self-parody. They were both newly in jail when the then-also-new comedy troupe Monty Python’s Flying Circus deemed to lampoon them with a sketch about “The Piranha Brothers,” Doug and Dinsdale, but the thing about that sketch, as it happened, was just how little it needed to stray from reality in order to hit the comic mark. Nevertheless, the Krays, who ruled criminal London from the late 1950s until their imprisonment in 1968, did real and wide-ranging human harm in their careers; this is a fact that Brian Helgeland, writer and director of a new crime movie about the twins, doesn’t seem to have any good ideas about what to do with. But that isn’t why “ Legend ” is such a muddle right off the bat.

Right off the bat it’s a muddle because of Helgeland’s slavish devotion to Martin Scorsese , a bad thing to display when you don’t have Scorsese’s chops. Early on in the picture, as Reggie Kray, the relatively charming, less psychotically violent of the fellows, is courting his future wife Frances, Helgeland opts to do a little “ GoodFellas .” As Reggie escorts Frances into a pub where he’s the kingpin, the moving camera follows from behind and glides alongside the couple as various friends of Reggie pay their respects. On a stage at the back, a singer is crooning “ The Look of Love ,” a song that had not actually been written when the scene takes place, but never mind that. You know where this is going. Helgeland wants to create his own version of the famed Copacabana tracking shot in Scorsese’s legendary 1990 gangster film, but he hasn’t quite worked out all the choreography—hence, the aforementioned singer ends up performing the world’s longest version of “The Look of Love,” at least until the point at which the sound editor or someone decided to have mercy and faded the guy out and substituted some generic-sounding movie music. This is merely one example, and a pretty outstanding one. There are plenty more throughout the film. (All of this is doubly stupefying when one recalls what a solid job Helgeland did in both writing and directing departments in his last picture, the 2013 Jackie Robinson story “42.”)

The movie’s main advantage and/or talking point is Tom Hardy, who plays both twins. Reggie is slick and confident, while Ronnie, a paranoid schizophrenic with strong sadistic tendencies, is like Lenny in “Of Mice And Men” if Lenny had been an East London mook, and evil to boot. Both performances are commanding, but not as commanding as they might have been. The weaknesses of Helgeland’s writing and directing are also to blame here. Particularly the latter: the unimaginative (and, I imagine, practically expedient) framing of the two Hardys during scenes in which they’re together makes the dual performance play like a tricksy stunt at times. Helgeland could have learned a great deal from the blocking of dual Jeremy Irons accomplished by David Cronenberg in “ Dead Ringers ,” which made the viewer feel as if there were really two different people in the frame. Too many times here there’s the feel of two different performances. Sometimes Hardy manages to ignite a spark. There’s a scene in which Chazz Palmentieri, playing a bluff emissary from the American Mafia, makes the twins an offer they’re better off not refusing, Ronnie’s belligerence notwithstanding. When Ronnie makes an unabashed announcement concerning his sexual preferences to this wise guy, it’s a real moment. As is one with Hardy’s Reggie, finally confessing at the end to his brother why he’s directing his own violent impulses so destructively into one target.

Moments such as these are too few and far between, while moments such as a wedding scene prefaced by the song “Chapel of Love” are far too many. The lucky bride is Reggie’s, and her name is Frances, and it’s with Frances’ story that the movie, for me, broke away from irritating mediocrity and into genuine badness.

Helgeland’s conception of Frances is doubly banal. First, he saddles her with the burden of semi-omniscient narration that’s rife with platitudinous nonsense (“ 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 of which has the uncomfortable echo of the bit in the Piranha Brothers sketch wherein the gangsters detonate a nuclear device over London). Second, he gives her onscreen character hardly any more depth than any of the complaining gangster and/or undercover cop wives you’ve seen in dozens of crime pictures over the years, Emily Browning ’s committed performance notwithstanding. Which makes Helgeland’s final trick with this character all the more objectionable when he finally pulls it. I knew a bit about the case of the Krays before coming in to the screening of the picture, but that knowledge wasn’t at the forefront of my consciousness as I watched the movie. And then I thought … wait a minute. And sure enough …

Spoiler alert: Reginald Kray’s real-life first wife, Frances Shea, committed suicide in 1967, two years after marrying Kray. And this is indeed depicted in the last fifth of the film, complete with Frances-as-narrator playing a little bit of “gotcha” with the audience. It strikes me as both aesthetically cheap and morally dubious to make an actual suicide into your own Joe Gillis for the sake of … well, that’s the other thing, which is I don’t know what “Legend” was made in the sake of. It’s a squalid story told with very little in the way of a dynamic personal perspective, and hence a waste of its very talented cast.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Legend (2015)

Rated R for strong violence, language throughout, some sexual and drug material.

131 minutes

Tom Hardy as Ronald Kray / Reginald Kray

Emily Browning as Frances Shea

Taron Egerton as Teddy Smith

David Thewlis as Leslie Payne

Colin Morgan as Frankie / Franck Shea

Christopher Eccleston as Leonard 'Nipper' Read

Paul Anderson as Albert Donoghue

Chazz Palminteri as Angelo Bruno

Aneurin Barnard as David Bailey

Millie Brady as Joan Collins

Charley Palmer Rothwell as Leslie Holt

Bob Cryer as Charles Kray Snr

Brian Helgeland

Writer (book "The Profession of Violence")

John Pearson

Cinematographer

Peter McNulty
Carter Burwell

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Legend Reviews

Little more than an extravagant, blood-soaked and alcohol-fueled story, Legend fulfills its title; an overinflated piece of bar room folklore better told over a cold pint of Guinness (or several).

Full Review | Aug 2, 2023

Hardy's individual performances are excellent, quite predictably, though his characters are two-dimensional at best.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 23, 2022

Hardy's performance shows off his range as an actor and is a perfect image of his acting chops. Beyond Hardy, [it] is a flawed gangster film with shifts in tone and [a familiar] plot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 9, 2021

Legend sweeps aside the actual drama of everyday life in favor of gory exotica.

Full Review | Feb 26, 2021

Legend is chaotic, fast-paced and visually impressive, with [Tom] Hardy delivering his best performance to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 19, 2019

Flashy production and performances don't distract from the film's flaws, though the American Helgeland nails the minutiae of British life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 4, 2019

This is a brisk stroll through London's crime syndicate with a dual Tom Hardy performance that's worth the steep price of admission.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 1, 2019

Tom Hardy fans and Sixties aficionados should be pleased, but those seeking a really engrossing gangster story should continue the search.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Dec 7, 2018

As a double vehicle for a fantastic actor, it is worth watching.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2018

A well polished, but plodding biopic, driven by strong character performances and a well-chosen cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 22, 2018

Hardy's double performance is a joy to behold, but the film maybe doesn't quite have the conviction to make it as legendary as some would've hoped.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 11, 2018

Legend is indecently entertaining, but as an East End western it doesn't have a thought in its head other than to forgive the Krays for all their sins.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 21, 2017

Legend has all the elements of a period gangster film in place, along with dollops of additional dash and verve.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 9, 2017

For all its good looks, Legend is a let-down, hampered by the vanity of its star and by what, for British audiences, at least, feels like a Krays-lite version of a very familiar story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 26, 2017

Fans of Tom Hardy will find plenty to like, but no one else has a reason to watch this movie.

Full Review | Oct 16, 2017

[Tom] Hardy doesn't just act. He doesn't just become a screen character. He embodies the real-life personalities he is attempting to portray and ends up achieving something that warrants such adjectives as dynamic and fearless and even unforgettable.

Full Review | Aug 16, 2017

Director Brian Helgeland lays everything on with a trowel, but subtlety isn't why we're here. The flash, the violence, and Tom Hardy's twin performances make Legend a fun ride.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2017

Tom Hardy does not so much act in films as wildly devour them, drawing every last ounce of energy and audience love his way. In Legend... he sucks an entire dressing-up box towards him as well.

Full Review | Feb 28, 2017

Legend really does waste the majority of its potential, Helgeland never tapping into the story of the Kray brothers in a way that is essential or lasting.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 18, 2016

Tom Hardy shines in "Legend" -- twice, in fact -- but his satisfying dual performance is the *only* thing Brian Helgeland's film has going for it.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 31, 2016

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Film Review: Tom Hardy in ‘Legend’

Hardy's astonishing, award-caliber twin turn as the notorious Kray brothers deepens and darkens Brian Helgeland's biopic.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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There are two good reasons to make what might otherwise seem an inessential new biopic of Ronnie and Reggie Kray — and both of them, as it happens, take the formidable form of Tom Hardy . Playing both the infamously savage Cockney crime lords in a dazzling feat of thespian self-splicing to rival Jeremy Irons in “Dead Ringers,” Hardy’s inspired twin turn elevates and complicates the otherwise straightforward terrain of “ Legend ,” in which U.S. writer-helmer Brian Helgeland gives London’s East End gangland a slightly touristic candy-coating of Swinging ’60s glamor. While Helgeland’s script lacks the wit and grit of his Oscar-winning job on “L.A. Confidential,” this lengthy, engrossing underworld saga creditably attempts to work a female perspective — that of Reggie’s innocent wife, Frances — into these laddish proceedings. If the Hardy Boys’ film-swallowing contribution ultimately thwarts the effort, that can’t be helped.

Given an enduring local fascination with the Brothers Kray, business should boom in Blighty, where the pic opens ahead of its international premiere in Toronto. In the U.S., “Legend” may viably be marketed two ways by the currently indomitable Universal: as a lavishly violent genre outing and as a more prestigious awards vehicle for its duplicated leading man. Interestingly, Hardy’s own performance splits along comparable lines. His Reggie is a suave, charismatically volatile antihero calculated to inspire perverse admiration among younger male auds; his playfully eccentric inhabitation of the gay, mentally unstable Ronnie would, on its own, rep the more extravagant bid for thespian kudos. That both these distinct achievements — the work of a vital movie star and a resourceful character actor, respectively — are contained within a single performance is, of course, its true marvel. The illusion is achieved so fluidly and separably that the practicalities of the stunt are soon forgotten.

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As a performance showcase, then, “Legend” is more sensational than Peter Medak’s meaner, muddier 1990 biopic “The Krays,” which nonetheless boasted fine work from New Romantic balladeers Gary and Martin Kemp. It’s less satisfying as psychological profile: For all Hardy’s expressive detail and physical creativity, Helgeland’s chewy, incident-packed script offers little insight into what made either of these contrasting psychopaths tick, or finally explode. Where Medak’s film focused extensively on the twins’ warped relationship with their dangerously doting mother, Violet (so vividly drawn by Billie Whitelaw), she’s a peripheral presence here. Rather, it’s Frances Shea — the working-class ingenue who married Reggie in her teens before succumbing to drugs and depression — who acts as the story’s principal female agent. Played by Emily Browning , Frances is even granted the film’s guiding voiceover, narrating the Krays’ antics in disillusioned tones from the outset until, via a cruel structural fillip, her point of view is harshly stymied.

It’s an unexpected way into the legend, but a compromised one. Despite Browning’s sympathetic efforts, Frances remains something of a cipher in the very story she’s telling, as the film dwells only cursorily on the mental and physical abuse she endured at the hands of her husband. On the more central subject of the Krays’ growing criminal empire, her point of view takes on an unconvincing omniscience; in assuming equal narrative authority on their domestic and professional lives, the device winds up selling both a little short.

While the framing is askew, the picture within is still a compelling one. Helgeland has fashioned the Krays’ rearing of London’s underworld from the gutters of Whitechapel to the sequin-lined heart of Soho as a bloodily romanticized evocation of time and place not dissimilar to “Bugsy’s” from-the-ground-up chronicle of the Las Vegas Strip. Dick Pope’s lensing frequently opts for comic-book extremities in its angles and compositions; production designer Tom Conroy revels in mirrored, brandy-tinted surfaces and heedlessly of-the-moment interior kitsch. Costume designer Caroline Harris, meanwhile, races through impeccably contoured, magazine-ready ensembles as recklessly as their freshly wealthy wearers presumably bought them. (Clothes maketh the men rather brilliantly when it comes to distinguishing the Krays themselves: Reggie’s spiv-slick suits are tailored, finished and carried so differently from Ronnie’s more ungainly gear as to denote a different physique entirely.)

If all this lacquered period veneer gives the film a faint air of dress-up — right down to retro-inclined contemporary pop star Duffy turning up as a sultry lounge singer — that’s at least somewhat appropriate to a downfall narrative in which surface prosperity is all too easily stripped away. (Less excusable is a rather literal-minded soundtrack of ’60s jukebox standards that smothers Carter Burwell’s ripe score.) Even viewers unfamiliar with the Krays’ story will swiftly deduce the genre-dictated direction of things, as the film routinely checks in with doggedly trailing police detective Leonard “Nipper” Read (a grimacing Christopher Eccleston) between the boys’ increasingly grisly exploits. Similarly, the meet-cute initiation of Reggie’s relationship with Frances hardly makes the subsequent souring of their marriage (between sporadic jail stints) any less surprising: Hers is a cautionary tale structured along similar, albeit grimmer, lines to “An Education.”

Most intriguing amid Helgeland’s tangle of familiar plot strands is Ronnie’s terse expression of his homosexuality — both to calculated professional ends, as the notorious orgies he hosts at his modest Bethnal Green apartment implicate high-flying political abettors, and more vulnerably private ones. His romantic relationship with young lackey Teddy Smith (a poignant, underused Taron Egerton, in very different gun-toting territory from “Kingsman”) is played in tender fashion, though it’s disappointing that the film, seemingly nervous of offending less liberal male auds, presents it in such coy terms. Still, whether taunting fellow heavies with pre-emptive admissions of his sexual preferences, brutishly declaring his own fragility to his bemused brother or making pie-in-the-sky plans to build an urban utopia in Nigeria, the formerly institutionalized Ronnie is the film’s most fascinating, conflicted figure — and the one whose interior life most eludes Frances’ narration.

Adopting a singularly strange, phlegmy vocal delivery, Hardy gleefully plays up his peculiar sense of etiquette, while locating a slim core of perceptive decency in his madness. Projecting a sense of near-feral bewilderment at the world’s demands, he wears his own skin fretfully; playboy Reggie, on the other hand, slides into his like a broken-in pair of loafers. This fundamental conflict in the Krays’ respective states of being is one Hardy wryly articulates even as the film concerns itself with plottier cops-and-robbers activity; if there’s an upside to “Legend’s” baggy structure and distracted focus, it’s that it allows ample room for this remarkable dual characterization to breathe and bellow.

Reviewed at Working Title screening room, London, July 23, 2015. (In Toronto Film Festival — Gala Presentations.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 131 MIN.

Production: (U.K.) A Universal Pictures (in U.S.)/Studiocanal (in U.K.) release of a Studiocanal presentation of a Working Title production in association with Anton Capital Entertainment, Amazon Prime Instant Video. Produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Chris Clark, Quentin Curtis, Brian Oliver. Executive producers, Kate Solomon, Amelia Granger, Liza Chasin, Olivier Courson, Ron Halpern, Tom Hardy, Tyler Thompson, Timmy Thompson. Co-producer, Jane Robertson.
Crew: Directed, written by Brian Helgeland, adapted from the book "The Profession of Violence" by John Pearson. Camera (color, widescreen), Dick Pope; editor, Peter McNulty; music, Carter Burwell; music supervisor, Liz Gallacher; production designer, Tom Conroy; art directors, Gareth Cousins, Marco Restivo; set decorator, Crispian Sallis; costume designer, Caroline Harris; sound (Dolby Atmos), Danny Hamsbrook; supervising sound editor, Dominic Gibbs; re-recording mixers, Jeffrey Haboush, Mark Taylor; visual effects supervisor, Adam Rowland; visual effects, Nvizible; stunt coordinator, Julian Spencer; assistant director, Jack Ravenscroft; casting, Lucinda Syson.
With: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Taron Egerton, Christopher Eccleston, Chazz Palminteri, Tara Fitzgerald, Jane Wood, Paul Bettany, Colin Morgan, Paul Anderson, Stephen Lord, Duffy.

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‘legend’: film review.

Tom Hardy co-stars with himself to play notorious London gangsters Ron and Reggie Kray in director Brian Helgeland's violent period drama.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

Contributing Film Critic

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There’s a British expression, “all mouth and no trousers,” which means someone who talks a great game but can’t actually deliver on his boasts. It’s an apt way to describe Legend , an account of the infamous identical twins Ron and Reggie Kray (both played by Tom Hardy ), Cockney gangsters who ran nightclubs and protection rackets, achieving tabloid notoriety in the 1960s .

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland (his script for L.A. Confidential won an Oscar, and he directed 42 and Payback , among others), this ungainly portrait strikes a lot of poses, as if inviting the viewer to admire its impressive cast list, fine period detailing, “cheeky” British humor and insouciant attitude toward violence. But none of it disguises the fact that the film is also tonally incoherent, vacuous and structurally a bleedin ‘ mess. The Brits’ fading but still persistent fascination with the Krays will nevertheless ensure reasonable admissions locally, and Hardy’s name will draw interest offshore, but it’s not likely to stay in theatrical custody for long.

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By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Tom Hardy can act the hell out of any role, from subtle to blow-the-roof-off. In Legend, Hardy gets to do both, and all stops in between. It helps that he’s playing identical twins. And what twins. Ronald and Reginald Kray were the gangster lords of London during the 1960s. Reggie, ever the smooth operator, was cool enough to temporarily hide his cruel streak from Frances (Emily Browning), the girl he woos like Romeo courting his Juliet on her balcony.

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Writer-director Brian Helgeland uses Frances to narrate the film, a device that fails to pay off, since even a voice-over can’t make sense of Ronnie. The gay Kray is indisputably cray-cray, a monster given to sadistic violence and orgies involving Lord Boothby (John Sessions) and Teddy Smith (a terrific Taron Egerton). Of course, Ronnie loves his mum (Jane Wood). But his outbursts with an American Mafioso (Chazz Palminteri) drive Reggie bonkers. At one point, the brothers punch each other out.

It sounds silly, and often it is. Peter Medak’s 1990 film The Krays, starring Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet, had more narrative force. Helgeland’s script is hit-and-miss, not on the Oscar-winning level of his L.A. Confidential . Still, Hardy is a show all by himself, an actor flying without a net and having a ball. You will too.

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‘Legend’ Review: Tom Hardy Wows as Twin Gangsters, But Rest of Movie Fires Blanks

Brian Helgeland’s cartoon mythologizing of ’60s-era London mobsters is lucky to feature Hardy’s bursting portrayal of two-headed malevolence

On the dangerous side of swinging London in the ’60s were twin terrors Ronald and Reggie Kray, East End hoods whose glittery personae and violent doings have captivated Brits ever since. Already mythologized once on film in 1990’s “The Krays,” starring Gary and Martin Kemp of Spandau Ballet, the pair are now the focus of writer-director Brian Helgeland ‘s slick, empty-headed lark “Legend,” starring Tom Hardy and, thanks to digital magic, Tom Hardy . The beautiful bruiser juggles both roles with a coiled pizzazz that the movie around him never earns.

Bypassing the Krays’ early years as amateur boxers and protection racket up-and-comers, the movie starts square in the thick of their power days running an outfit called The Firm. Very quickly Helgeland marks the twins’ differences: Nattily dressed Reg charmingly chats up housewives on East End streets, cleverly evades shadowing coppers (which include a scowling Christopher Eccleston as nemesis Inspector “Nipper” Read), and starts wooing an associate’s fetching sister, Frances ( Emily Browning ). Ronnie, meanwhile, has served three years for grievous bodily harm, and needs to take pills to curb his possible paranoid schizophrenia. Quick to lash out and suspicious of confidantes, he’s also truthful to a fault, telling a New York mafioso (Chazz Palminteri) eager to hook him up with any girl he wants, “I prefer boys.”

As for the gangster stuff, Helgeland’s approach is hit-and-run style: a pub brawl with a rival gang (led by an over-the-top Paul Bettany ), some shady deals (with David Thewlis’s ass-kissing fixer) to take over nightclubs, and even a sex scandal involving Ron and a conservative politician (John Sessions). The real-life murders that sealed their judicial fate are depicted, and mob movies get shout-outs — Helgeland even cribs the famous tracking shot from “Goodfellas” for a scene in which Reg and Frances grandly enter a club, during which Reg breaks away briefly for some administrative violence before returning to his date.

What would “Legend” be without its hard-working star? It’s tough to say, because you can’t imagine another actor pulling off Hardy’s secret combo of velvety menace and bulldog weirdness, and he’s the only punch to an otherwise standard gangster saga more interested in playboy panache than stick-to-your-ribs nastiness.

It’s fun to watch Hardy double-team this tough guy vaudeville, and aside from one enjoyably Kray-vs.-Kray bro-on-bro fight scene, ending with a tired embrace and Ronnie murmuring that he’s “fragile,” Helgeland’s direction of their shared-scene moments is nearly always mannered. ( David Cronenberg ‘s “Dead Ringers” did a more graceful job of showcasing one actor’s dual performance so you weren’t looking for the visual effects seams.) Hardy’s virtuosity saves the picture’s artificiality at nearly every turn.

That bravura performance also pinpoints the bigger problem with “Legend,” that it’s a schematic, cartoon depiction of the Krays and their world, with cookie-cutter signifiers to make them individually larger than life: Reg hetero and in love, Ron openly gay and orgy-mad; Reg the sane one attracted to looking legitimate, and Ron the loon enamored of criminal life. The reality is that they were both violent, (probably) bisexual nutters who advertised their gangsterdom as a way of hobnobbing with film stars and politicians.

Hardy’s a good enough actor to find the nuances in a pair of interchangeable, close-knit heavies. But “Legend” would prefer to gin things up with a one’s-good/one’s-crazy sibling rivalry/loyalty scenario. The center stage love story between Reg and Frances feels rigged, as well: too perfect at first, then too conveniently used to make Ronnie suspicious/jealous, then a predictable fizzle when Frances finally realizes — again, because it’s handy — what a terrible bloke Reg is.

That their relationship wasn’t romantic and embattled from the get-go is hard to believe; then again, that would have been more complicated to dramatize. If there’s only room for a single dominant woman, one longs instead for the late Billie Whitelaw’s juicy, scary turn as the boys’ mum Violet in “The Krays” to crash these posh, pop song-larded proceedings and scuff things up a bit.

On the technical side, the period décor from Tom Conroy and Caroline Harris’s array of costumes are a visual treat, but they’re so magazine-spread-ready under Dick Pope’s buffed, well-lit cinematography that “Legend” hardly feels like a story of the underworld. It’s gangster showmanship, scrubbed of meaning, even when being sold with style by its magnetic lead.

'Legend' Review: Double, Double Tom Hardy and Trouble

The 1960s-set gangster drama wants so badly to be 'Goodfellas' that it manages to undermine even dual Tom Hardy performances.

[ This is a re-post of my Legend review from the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival . The film is now playing in limited release. ]

It’s hard to make an uninteresting movie when you have Tom Hardy playing twin gangster brothers, and yet Legend is somehow up to the task. There’s surely a good story to be found in the life of the Kray Brothers, a pair of gangsters who ruled East End London in the 1960s, and while Legend at times gets close to finding something fascinating to say (or do), unfortunately it meanders its way through most of its overlong 131 minute runtime, resulting in a bore of a movie that leans far too heavily on familiar cliches.

Written and directed by Brian Helgeland , Legend charts the rise and fall of Reggie and Ronald Kray, with Hardy filling both roles of the identical twins. While Reggie and Ronnie are dual leaders of their criminal gang, Reggie—the “handsome” one—somewhat takes the captain role over Ronnie, who’s an odd fellow diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie opts to run their operations with a cool head, but Ronnie—who makes no effort to hide his homosexuality despite the culture of the time, which is one of the film’s few delights—is a bit of a loose cannon, prone to explosions and generally strange behavior, no doubt due to deep-rooted jealousy over his put-together brother.

This dynamic, coupled with Reggie’s deep loyalty to his blood relative despite the trouble Ronnie may cause, results in a quick rise up the ranks in the East End. On their way to the top, Reggie falls in love with a woman named Frances Shea ( Emily Browning ), adding a wife who yearns for Reggie to go legitimate to complicate matters further. Additionally, an ambitious London cop ( Christopher Eccleston ) is determined to bring the Kray Brothers down once and for all.

So that sounds pretty interesting, yeah? Indeed, more than a few moments of Legend are engaging, but the film doesn’t really know where it’s going and, at over two hours in length, becomes an absolute slog in its back half. It’s clear from the onset that Helgeland is trying to make his own version of Goodfellas , complete with an uninspired long take in a night club and voice over narration from Browning, but the film falls so short of that bar that you’re left wishing you were just watching Goodfellas instead.

Hardy is one of the most fascinating actors working today, and while the prospect of the performer taking on a pair of gangsters in the 1960s is highly promising, unfortunately the results aren’t nearly electric as they could’ve been. Hardy is clearly having a ball characterizing the distinct personalities of the brothers—especially Ronnie, whose voice he imbues with a touch of The Dark Knight Rises ' Bane. But some of the dialogue is tough to understand due to Hardy’s stylized accents, and there are moments when his performance as Ronnie surpasses over-the-top, nearly veering into comedy which, although ill-fitting to the mostly serious tone Helgeland sets, is also a movie I would have rather seen than Legend .

Browning's Frances technically has a major impact on the film’s plot, but is ultimately an uninteresting “complication” thrown between Reggie and Ronnie, and her chemistry with Hardy is nonexistent. Which is unfortunate, because a good portion of the film is devoted to chronicling the relationship between Reggie and Frances, servicing every gangster movie cliché in the book along the way. The cinematography is sufficiently handsome ( Dick Pope doesn't miss), but as if an underwhelming story wasn’t enough, an impressive though incongruous score by Carter Burwell undermines many of the film’s most dramatic moments.

Hardy does have some engaging sequences, mostly due to his willingness to play with characterization in relation to twin brothers, but more often than not the derivative script saddles him with little to do. At one point in Legend , Browning explains in voiceover that by the end of their journey, the characters were ghosts of the people they once were. It’s a fitting observation, given that the film itself feels like the ghost of a countless better movies we’ve already seen before.

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How Tom Hardy Plays His Own Twin in ‘Legend’

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By Mekado Murphy

Nov. 13, 2015

Since the 1961 film “The Parent Trap” with Hayley Mills, we’ve come a long way in depicting one person playing twins on screen. Or have we? Digital technology now allows for much more elaborate depictions of the screen double, but even the latest films still rely on some simple visual sleights of hand.

“Legend,” the new film from Brian Helgeland (opening Friday, Nov. 20), depicts the life of the identical twin gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray, notorious in the London crime scene of the 1960s. Rather than casting similar-looking actors or real-life twins, the film has Tom Hardy playing both brothers.

“I was a little leery of it at first,” Mr. Helgeland said in September during an interview at the Toronto International Film Festival. “There’s a tradition of casting one actor to play twins in movies, but usually in those movies, I just can’t get into it. I keep looking at it and not thinking about the movie.”

But Mr. Helgeland was persuaded by the fact that the Krays’ physical characteristics and mannerisms were different enough to tell them apart. Mr. Hardy’s approach to each brother is so distinct that it feels like two actors playing the roles.

The film employs tricks both classic (the split screen) and contemporary to show the characters in the same shot. In “The Parent Trap,” the split-screen method involved locking the camera down in a fixed spot and shooting the scene twice with Ms. Mills in one spot and an actress double in another. The filmmakers would then shoot the image to appear on the other half of the screen, with the positions of the two reversed. The film would be processed in an optical printer, first exposing the left side of the frame with a matte over the right side; then that same film would be run through again, now exposing the right side. The splits in the center would be hidden by background elements in the shot, like a door frame.

Today’s software eliminates the need for those cover-ups, but a camera shot that stays consistent from take to take is still essential. In “Legend,” when the camera needed to follow the characters, it would be motion-controlled, a process in which a computerized camera’s movement is programmed in advance, enabling its path to be repeated exactly. That made the process of adding doubles to the frame much smoother.

Fight Scene: ‘Legend’

A scene where the kray brothers, played by tom hardy, fight each other in brian helgeland film "legend.".

Among the first films to use motion-controlled cameras for a scene involving one actor playing multiple characters was Robert Zemeckis’s 1989 film, “Back to the Future Part II.” In one scene that is still a marvel to watch, Michael J. Fox is at a dinner table playing not only the future, middle-aged version of his character, Marty McFly, but also Marty’s son and daughter. He’s sitting next to his daughter, and the camera pans left to show him pouring a drink for his son. Scott Farrar, the film’s visual effects supervisor, had done some double imaging before with the effects supervisor Eric Brevig, having twin versions of Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler interact with one another in the 1988 movie “Big Business.” But for “Future,” the filmmakers wanted to push the technology forward, with the motion-controlled camera capturing the actor in three performances.

“You’re shooting three different passes on three different pieces of film,” Mr. Farrar said in a phone interview, “and you’re hoping to get everything developed and printed at the same time, so the chemistry on the film stock will be the same.”

They shot the scene on both film and video, so they could use video playback to ensure they got the timing right.

A comparatively recent example of advanced motion-control camera technique levels is found in a 2002 Kylie Minogue video for the song “Come Into My World,” directed by Michel Gondry. In it Ms. Minogue walks in a circular path around a suburban Paris block, and when she passes the shop where she began her stroll, she is joined by a duplicate version of herself. Repeating her route, she is joined by successive Kylies, until there are five on screen.

For actors, playing multiple characters in one film is a particular challenge. In the case of “Legend,” Mr. Hardy had to figure out the best way to act with himself. The double stand-in for Mr. Hardy was Jacob Tomuri, who was also his stunt double in “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But Mr. Tomuri is not an actor, so responsibility for the voice fell to Mr. Hardy.

“I would record both the brothers’ dialogue in the morning, so that we could have a guideline for Jacob to mime to while I spoke as the other brother,” Mr. Hardy said in a phone interview from London. Both performers wore earpieces to hear the side of the conversation that wasn’t being delivered live. Then they would switch positions and record the scene again.

In one charged scene , the twins get into a furious physical fight. Mostly this involved Mr. Hardy performing as each brother, opposite Mr. Tomuri. But in some moments — as when the brothers slap each other in the face multiple times — the choreography was so complicated that Mr. Tomuri, whose body stays in the frame, was given a digital face replacement.

For the scene, Mr. Hardy and Mr. Tomuri decided to actually hit each other. “It helped sell the fight enormously,” Mr. Helgeland said. “But my fear was that Tom was going to get a broken nose or something. He did end up getting a black eye, but it didn’t get puffy, so we covered it with makeup.”

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Legend Review - Tom Hardy Is Psychopathic And FUNNY In The British Attempt At Goodfellas

The actor reaches the big leagues with the Krays.

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.

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Two stars for one star playing two roles

How my negative review of Legend was spun into movie marketing gold

My two-star take on Tom Hardy’s Krays biopic was included in an official poster for the film. While I applaud the chutzpah in this case, audiences do need to be wary of false advertising

I didn’t really care for Tom Hardy’s Krays biopic Legend. In my two star review, I called it “disappointingly shallow” and “cartoonish”. I then made the seemingly-safe assumption that Studio Canal, the film’s UK distributor, probably wouldn’t be laminating my work and calling me for a quote.

But in a stroke of brazen genius, the marketing department tasked with selling the shoddy true crime tale decided to embrace the mediocrity of my review and found a devious solution. Note: focus between the ears.

Incredible way of making my two star review seem like I didn't hate the film pic.twitter.com/zvOyIxHQ3h — Benjamin Lee (@benfraserlee) September 8, 2015

There’s something maddeningly brilliant about this promotional sleight of hand. Technically, there’s nothing dishonest about the use of my rating. I gave it two stars and there are just two stars on display. I’ve been trolled and I’m totally alright with it. The word “chutzpah” has been used a lot on Twitter.

The blinkered process of selling a film that hasn’t been universally praised is rather like creating a dating profile that understandably focuses on the expansive travelling and love of animals over the crippling loneliness and weird sex thing. A film poster tends to exist in a shiny, happy universe where people say lovely things about lovely people who have done lovely things on a lovely set. I get the process and I appreciate the objective, especially in the face of adversity.

But, given the columns of bile that are often stacked against new releases (by a wider set of critics than ever before), marketeers are forced to utilise an added level of creativity. Just recently, I was part of a blanket email sent to a range of film journalists asking if someone could please attribute their name to the pre-written quote “A non-stop action classic” for the DVD release of a middling thriller. It’s not an unusual tactic either as companies have often tried to desperately steer journalists to like their film in exactly the way that they want them to like it. But after a number of publicised cases which exposed some shady tactics, marketing teams have had to ensure they’re at least attempting to avoid intentional wrongdoing.

In 2000, Sony executives decided it would be smart idea to invent a critic who would miraculously always love all of their movies. David Manning , aka thin air, thought that Hollow Man was “One helluva scary ride!” while Rob Schneider’s critically loathed comedy The Animal was “Another winner!”. It resulted in a payout to those who had seen the films in question. Around the same time, it was revealed that Sony had also used employees to pose as moviegoers in a TV spot for Mel Gibson’s The Patriot . One of them described the violent drama with implied rape threats as “a perfect date movie”.

While my two-star inclusion on the poster for Legend was, in my opinion, quite a smart move, other times a careful massage of the truth has often turned into something closer to outright fabrication. Earlier this year, AV Club film editor AA Dowd wrote a fantastic open letter to the company who released David O’Russell’s tortured comedy Accidental Love after they included a quote from him on the back of the Canadian DVD release attributing him with the words “A comedic masterstroke”. Given Dowd’s status and the critical mauling of the film, it seemed a tad unlikely. But here’s exactly what he said:

To be fair to whoever refashioned Accidental Love from the abandoned scraps of Nailed, there’s little reason to believe that the ideal, untroubled version of the material would have been a comedic masterstroke.

It’s a shady tactic but one that’s still rather prevalent. The TV spot for Gone Girl included a quote from Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers, who called it “the date-night movie of the decade”. It failed to include the second half of his actual quote which finished with “… for couples who dream of destroying one another”. The etiquette for using quotes in marketing is usually a friendly email asking for permission from the critic but it doesn’t always happen this way. Legally speaking, it’s a foggy area.

For some writers, they’re more than happy to help. “Many of these [critics quoted] don’t always even write an actual review,” Roger Ebert once told USA Today. “The extent of their writing on the film is the blurb which appears in the ad.” This is a practice that hasn’t tired. Self-promotion and vanity have led to a pool of quote-happy journalists, eager to see their name on the side of a bus. The ballad of Earl Dittman is one that sums up the mutually beneficial relationship that can exist between movie studio and journalist. Dittman became infamous for featuring on the posters for films that everyone else hated, blessing him with the title of “one of the top 10 movie quote whores of 2005”. He called Catwoman “100% pure fun and excitement”, Spider-Man 3 “The best Spider-Man yet!” and Boat Trip was “One crazy and daring romantic comedy”.

Dittman’s publication was Wireless magazine, a company that had no website and limited distribution. During his reign as professional quote-giver, many journalists tried to get to the bottom of his “success” with little to show for it arguing that he was often flown around the world by studios. While Dittman and “Manning” might have disappeared, studios have found a new way of selling bad movies. Real people. You know, the ones you see on the street doing real things. The recent DVD release of Jennifer Lopez’s tawdry thriller The Boy Next Door decided to avoid using quotes from critics (“ends up getting more laughs than many comedies” could have worked from the New York Post ) and opted for tweets from fans such as “Bloody brilliant” from @SagheerC93.

Ironically, for a film that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone bar Tom Hardy completists, my unimpressed review has actually helped Legend go viral just as it receives its UK release. My tweet has been shared over 11,000 times and seen by over 1.4m people. The “story” has been covered by sites including the BBC, Buzzfeed, TIME and Mashable. Looking at the majority of tweets, the main take-out has been one of sly admiration for Studio Canal. I might still dislike Legend but I like its marketing team. If only they could have written the script ...

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Tom Hardy's Next Action Movie Is More Exciting Than Upcoming Film With 83% On Rotten Tomatoes

Tom Hardy's upcoming action movie Havoc with director Gareth Evans is highly anticipated for his return to a lead action role.
While The Bikeriders showcases Hardy's supporting acting skills, Havoc will highlight his talents as the main lead in an action movie.
Fans can expect thrilling action sequences and a showcase of Tom Hardy's acting abilities in Havoc, eagerly awaiting its release date on Netflix.

Tom Hardy 's role in The Bikeriders is highly anticipated, but his upcoming action movie is even more exciting. The British actor has had a successful career over the last few decades thanks to his ability to fit into multiple different genres and types of roles. He's delivered dramatic performances worthy of Oscar nominations, and there is the potential that he will do so again with Jeff Nichols' film The Bikeriders . Tom Hardy's involvement opposite Austin Butler and Jodie Comer, plus The Bikeriders ' Rotten Tomatoes score of 83%, has helped make it among the actor's most anticipated upcoming projects.

The chance to see Tom Hardy deliver another memorable dramatic turn (with another new accent/voice) is exciting, but so, too, are the opportunities to have him in more action-heavy roles. Whether it's the physical transformation required for Bane in The Dark Knight Rises or tackling Max in Mad Max: Fury Road , new Tom Hardy action movies typically live up to the hype. His next movie will not deliver on the action front, but there is another film that will. Hardy has an incredibly exciting action movie coming after his dramatic return in The Bikeriders .

Sorry Austin Butler, Tom Hardy Is Reclaiming His Title As The King Of Distracting Movie Accents

Tom hardy's havoc movie pairs him with the raid's director gareth evans, it's an action-heavy role.

Director Gareth Evans

Writers Gareth Evans

Cast Luis Guzmn, Jessie Mei Li, Timothy Olyphant, Tom Hardy, Justin Cornwell, Forest Whitaker

Rating Not Yet Rated

Genres Thriller, Action

Tom Hardy's next action movie is a project called Havoc , which was first announced in 2021. His involvement in the film from the start was reason enough to get excited, but the collaboration with director Gareth Evans made it even better. Evans is best known for directing The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2 . The two action movies are widely regarded as some of the best modern entries in the genre. It is the chance to see Tom Hardy take on a more action-heavy role under the direction of Gareth Evans that makes Havoc so exciting.

Havoc 's story revolves around Tom Hardy's detective character as he fights to save a politician's son. Further details on the plot and characters are not known, but this basic setup is expected to allow Hardy to fully flex his talents as an action movie lead. Whether in The Raid movies or Evans' 2018 movie Apostle , the director has always shown an incredible ability to deliver memorable action sequences and get the most of out of his cast. That should mean Havoc becomes a showcase for Tom Hardy like never before.

Despite finishing filming in 2021, Netflix has yet to announce when Havoc will be released.

Havoc Puts Tom Hardy Back In The Lead Role After The Bikeriders

Hardy is only supporting in the bikeriders.

As entertaining as it will be to see Tom Hardy in an action movie again with Havoc , the project is also more exciting due to the size of his role. The Bikeriders represents another example of Hardy being more of a character actor , sliding into impactful supporting roles over headlining major productions. Tom Hardy hasn't been the main lead in a non- Venom movie since 2020, and his last before then was 2015. He's spent much of his time playing smaller characters, like in Dunkirk or The Bikeriders , instead of being the star of newer projects.

Thankfully, Havoc is a film that will be carried on the back of Tom Hardy. He's the main character of the film and the performer who is likely to be involved in the most action sequences. Hardy might ultimately be terrific in The Bikeriders , but it is exciting to know that Havoc will put him back in the lead role . Now the movie just needs to deliver on its potential quality to avoid being a disappointment for Tom Hardy .

Tom Hardy's Next Action Movie Is More Exciting Than Upcoming Film With 83% On Rotten Tomatoes

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Movie Review: 'Legend' Features Two Legendary Performances From Tom
Legend Film Review: Tom Hardy Delivers A Seamless, Multifaceted Performance
Review: ‘Legend,’ Starring Tom Hardy as the Gangster Twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray
‘Legend’ is a tour de force for Tom Hardy
Review: ‘Legend,’ Starring Tom Hardy as the Gangster Twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray
The Ex-PressMovie review: Legend a showcase for actor Tom Hardy

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The Legend Movie review

COMMENTS

Legend movie review & film summary (2015)
The movie's main advantage and/or talking point is Tom Hardy, who plays both twins. Reggie is slick and confident, while Ronnie, a paranoid schizophrenic with strong sadistic tendencies, is like Lenny in "Of Mice And Men" if Lenny had been an East London mook, and evil to boot. Both performances are commanding, but not as commanding as ...
Legend
Rated: 2/4 • Apr 23, 2022. Rated: 3/5 • Oct 9, 2021. Suave, charming and volatile, Reggie Kray (Tom Hardy) and his unstable twin brother Ronnie start to leave their mark on the London ...
Review: 'Legend,' Starring Tom Hardy as the Gangster Twins Ronnie and
Tom Hardy and Tom Hardy are the reasons to see "Legend," a gangster flick in which he does double duty as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the British gangster twins who had a moment in the 1960s.
Legend, movie review: Tom Hardy is brilliant in this weird love story
Legend, movie review: Tom Hardy is brilliant in this weird love story about the Kray twins. Brian Helgeland, 131 mins, starring: Tom Hardy, Taron Egerton, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston ...
Legend review
Legend review - Tom Hardy divides and conquers as the Krays. Tom Hardy is bang-on as both Ronnie and Reggie in a cartoonish but entertaining account of the Kray twins' East End reign. A ny ...
Legend (2015)
Legend: Directed by Brian Helgeland. With Paul Anderson, Tom Hardy, Christopher Eccleston, Joshua Hill. Identical twin gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray terrorize London during the 1960s.
Legend (2015 film)
Legend is a 2015 biographical crime thriller film written and directed by American director Brian Helgeland.It is adapted from John Pearson's book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, which deals with their career and the relationship that bound them together, and follows their gruesome career to life imprisonment in 1969.. This is Helgeland's fifth feature film.
Legend
Tom Hardy shines in "Legend" -- twice, in fact -- but his satisfying dual performance is the *only* thing Brian Helgeland's film has going for it. Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 31, 2016
Film Review: Tom Hardy in 'Legend'
Film Review: Tom Hardy in 'Legend'. Hardy's astonishing, award-caliber twin turn as the notorious Kray brothers deepens and darkens Brian Helgeland's biopic. There are two good reasons to make ...
'Legend': Film Review
Movies; Movie Reviews 'Legend': Film Review. Tom Hardy co-stars with himself to play notorious London gangsters Ron and Reggie Kray in director Brian Helgeland's violent period drama.
Legend Review
7. Review scoring. It's not the definitive Krays movie, but Legend is a good crime drama, featuring one great Tom Hardy performance. Tom Hardy takes on the twin roles of Ronnie and Reggie Kray in ...
'Legend' Movie Review
Tom Hardy can act the hell out of any role, from subtle to blow-the-roof-off. In Legend, Hardy gets to do both, and all stops in between. It helps that he's playing identical twins.
Legend review
Legend review - Tom Hardy on double duty in cartoonish Krays biopic. It's two thugs for the price of one actor and while flashes of brilliance emerge from his performance (s), Hardy is let down ...
Legend (2015)
The story of the Kray twins is a fascinating one, full of violence and deceit. In Legend, that story isn't really taken to its full potential, thanks to an unfortunately clunky structure despite brilliant performances, good humour and violence. Let's start with the best part of this film, that is Tom Hardy's performances as Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
Legend
Boston Globe. Nov 24, 2015. Legend is more than a gimmick, but not quite enough. The movie's a testament to the Krays' ability to get away with everything — for a while, anyway. But it's better evidence of Tom Hardy's ability to do just about anything. Read More. By Ty Burr FULL REVIEW. 60.
Legend review
Tom Hardy bullishly plays both twin brothers, thus following in an old established film tradition, the movie version of a theatrical quick-change routine, embodied by - among many others ...
'Legend' Review: Tom Hardy Wows as Twin Gangsters, But Rest of Movie
'Legend' Review: Tom Hardy Wows as Twin Gangsters, But Rest of Movie Fires Blanks. Brian Helgeland's cartoon mythologizing of '60s-era London mobsters is lucky to feature Hardy's ...
Legend Review: Two Tom Hardys for the Price of One
Adam Chitwood reviews the 1960s-set gangster drama Legend, which stars Tom Hardy as twin brothers in a pair of charismatic performances in an otherwise dull movie.
"Legend" (Starring Tom Hardy)
"Legend" starring Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, and David Thewlis is reviewed by Matt Atchity (Rotten Tomatoes), Alonso Duralde (TheWrap and Linoleum Knife podc...
How Tom Hardy Plays His Own Twin in 'Legend'
Both performers wore earpieces to hear the side of the conversation that wasn't being delivered live. Then they would switch positions and record the scene again. In one charged scene, the twins ...
Legend Review
Hardy just about kept it reigned in to ensure the character felt menacing when he needed to, but for all the film's darkness, those moments did leave me thinking that the Krays were a threat ...
Legend (2015) Movie Review in Hindi
legend trailerlegend trailer hindilegend trailer in hindilegend full movielegend 2015 trailertom hardylegendlegend movie in hindilegend imdblegend movie trai...
How my negative review of Legend was spun into movie marketing gold
Ironically, for a film that I wouldn't recommend to anyone bar Tom Hardy completists, my unimpressed review has actually helped Legend go viral just as it receives its UK release. My tweet has ...
Tom Hardy's Next Action Movie Is More Exciting Than Upcoming Film With
Tom Hardy hasn't been the main lead in a non-Venom movie since 2020, and his last before then was 2015. He's spent much of his time playing smaller characters, like in Dunkirk or The Bikeriders ...