Legend

The poster for Legend, brilliantly hiding the 2 star review from The Guardian

Because I’m a member of the metropolitan elite, I got to see Legend last weekend, before its release for ordinary people like you. Disappointingly it’s not a remake of the Ridley Scott fantasy film from 1985.  (actually I’ve never seen that film. Is it any good, or is it one of those forgettable films that Scott makes every so often?).  It’s actually about The Krays.

Directed and written by Brian Helgeland (his excellent BAFTA screenwriters’ lecture from a few years ago is worth watching here), it’s funnier than you think (“a paranoid schizophrenic walks into a bar…”) as well as being very violent (see the scene that follows that line).

Most attention will be paid to Tom Hardy’s double performance as both Reggie and Ronnie Kray.  Sometimes, when they’re both on screen at the same time – or rather, he’s on screen in both roles, you can see the green screen “join”, and there are other times when the film is shot in a way that wouldn’t have been done if it was two actors in the roles, but enough can’t be said about how good Hardy’s performances are.

I don’t think enough will be made of them, however, because people will make incorrect assumptions about how it was shot.  If I hadn’t seen the Q&A with Helgeland that followed by screening (again, metropolitan elite only), I’d have assumed that Hardy had shot all his scenes as Reggie (who is the bigger presence in the film), then they’d shut down production for a couple of weeks while he bulked up to play Ronnie.  Turns out the budget and logistics meant he had to play both brothers every day on set, quite an achievement when you see how different they appear.

It’s worth noting that Helgeland got a credit on Ridley Scott’s pisspoor Robin Hood, which started off as a revisionist take on the legend called Nottingham, and where Russell Crowe was originally going to play both the Sheriff of Nottingham and his nemesis.  Actors playing dual roles must be his thing.  If I wasn’t a lazy fucker I’d write about Nottingham and Gladiator 2 and loads of other films that never got made but should have.

Though Reggie is the focus, Ronnie gives the dark comic relief; in a scene where Reggie’s doomed wife shows herself to be unable to make a cup of tea, Ronnie and the twins’ mother both exclaim “poor Reggie”.  When Reggie beats her up, his paranoid schizophrenic brother tells her it’s not right; that’s not how they were brought up.

The locations look authentic, though The Blind Beggar in the film isn’t the real Blind Beggar; they actually use The Royal Oak on Columbia Road (around which much of the film appears to have been shot, though Vallance Road, where the brothers lived, was filmed near Waterloo).  I once got told off in The Blind Beggar for messing around with the candle on my table.  It’s OK for the Krays to shoot someone there, but I can’t play with fire and wax?  What a joke.

It’s violent and funny and dark and mostly true, and Hardy gives a performance that should win awards (as he did in Locke, which more people should watch). Go and watch it when it’s released for you proles.