Tom Hardy presumably going the old "play twins" Oscar nominee route here, as he plays both Reggie and Ron Kray, a pair of 1960s British gangsters.
You kind of know how these things go. They climb the ladder breaking skulls and crushing their opposition. One brother falls in love, and starts to think about maybe going more legitimate. Less skull busting, more running successful clubs. He may have acquired those clubs by putting the squeeze on the owner, but that's just savvy business, isn't it?
Even so, he's not willing to abandon his old ways entirely, leaving his lady feeling isolated. She isn't happy, he resents her, it falls apart, he feels sad after. His brother still likes doing things the old way, and finally goes one step too far, and the whole thing collapses.
Nothing you haven't seen before, so it's a matter of how entertaining you find watching Tom Hardy chew scenery as two different guys. They do manage to make Ron look bigger than Reggie. I'm not sure if Hardy's standing on a box as Ron to look taller, or if they made his suits smaller so he looks like he's so big he's about to burst out of them or what. He's also talking through cotton balls or something as Ron, it's honestly difficult to understand what he's saying at times.
I did enjoy the fight between them in the club, which starts with pushing and slapping, and before you know it we're up to eye gouging, testicle crushing, and smashing bottles over people's heads. If this is what sibling fights are like (and I have friends I've seen stab their sibling in the arm with a fork before, so I'm guessing it isn't far off), I'm OK being an only child.
I felt like the police presence could have been served by a generally faceless brigade of cops, rather than the one Scotland Yard guy that is supposedly hounding them. Because he appears to be a) pretty bad at his job, and b) vanishes from the film for long periods of time. Then he reappears and he's still not getting anywhere. There's never any feeling in the movie that he accomplishes anything to do with the Krays' downfall - Ron can't let go of his mistrust of their financial guy, and Reggie takes all his frustration with Ron out on this other dumbass - so do you need the cop at all?
I did enjoy the part where Reggie loses his shit on the guy at the end. You'd think you'd be grateful when the gun pointed in your face misfires, but no, I think that guy would have preferred the bullet to how things went after that.
2 comments:
I like Tom Hardy a lot and I think he is a genuinely good actor, or at least an interesting one, but I can't take him seriously. In almost every role he plays* I find him hilarious, which is a problem when the film isn't supposed to be funny. I think Legend is supposed to be funny sometimes, but not when they are chopping people into bits.
*Aside from Locke. For some reason, that one works even though it's the one in most danger of going full comedy as Hardy is saddled with a "dubious" Welsh accent for two hours.
I definitely found his portrayal of Ron kind of ridiculous. That weird voice he was using, it was like he glued his teeth together, then tried to do his Bane voice.
On the plus side, I understand a little better what you meant when you compared him to Nic Cage in that post I did about Locke.
I can't really comment on his accent in Locke. I'm pretty bad about accents most of the time, and I don't think I have any clue what proper Welsh sounds like. I kind of picture it as being nearly unintelligible to someone who isn't Welsh, but that might be from jokes I've seen about the names things are given in Wales.
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