
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. 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. The illusion is achieved so fluidly and separably that the practicalities of the stunt are soon forgotten.Īs 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.
Legend tom hardy cast movie#
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.

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. Interestingly, Hardy’s own performance splits along comparable lines.

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. 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.
