Double Trouble

I'm going to start this review with one of those sweeping comments that pretty much everyone will agree with and that is - Tom Hardy is a great actor. Yes I know it's a fairly sweeping comment and doesn't necessarily mean that everything he has appeared is great but even the most horrible of movies in which he has played a part I think it would be fair to say that he is likely the best thing in it.

Now I will follow that opening up by saying that I wasn't really aware of Hardy until I watched him as Freddie in Martina Coles The Take which was on TV in 2009. He had however been plying his trade for eight years by that point after making his debut in 2001s Band of Brothers. From there he was in the likes of Black Hawk Down, Star Trek Nemesis and Layer Cake. His first big film role was as Charles Bronson in the 2008 film of the same name. Now whilst the film was actually out a year before The Take I must confess that I did not see it until after being impressed by his Take performance and choosing to check out some more of his work.

Over the next few years he turned up in the likes of Inception, Warrior and This Means War before kicking the crap out of Batman as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Whilst there were critics of the character in DKR (mostly in regards to the difficulty in understanding what Bane was saying due to his mask) but for my money I preferred his Bane to Heath Ledgers Joker but thats just personal taste and I do still prefer the Dark Knight to DKR thanks to the ridiculous end DKR suffered from.

Hardys big movie of 2015 in terms of box office performance was of course Mad Max Fury Rd which I have said before didn't really do anything for me. He is of course also in the Revenant which has not yet hit cinemas this side of the pond so the other of this year that warrants attention and of course is the subject of this review is none other than Legend.

Legend tells the tale of the Kray Twins Ronnie and Reggie who together are among the most notorious gangsters in British criminal history. They ruled the underworld of London with an iron fist in the 60's and became a kind of peusdo celebrity both locally and on a national basis.

There have of course been films about the Krays before, most notably The Krays from 1990 which starred Martin and Gary Kemp and was directed by Peter Medak. Jumping forward 25 years Brian Helgeland has turned his hand to bringing the Krays story to the big screen. HElgeland has previously directed A Knights Tale and 42 but is better known for his writing with the likes of LA Confidential and Mystic River on his resume, though he has admittedly also been responsible for the screenplays of The Postman and the 2010 version of Robin Hood. As well as directing Legend he is also responsible for writing the film and for my money this is his best work to date.

The story of the Krays is well known and covering the plot here isn't really necessary, besides the selling point of this film is the dual performance of Hardy as he plays both of the twins. In fact I don't think it would be an understatement to call his performance here a tour de force as he smashes not one but two roles out of the park. Yes it could be argued that in Ronnie Kray he is channeling the spirit of Freddie from The Take but he takes the vibe of menacing psychopath to a whole other level. On the other hand he brings a completely different feeling to the other half of the equation in his performance of Reggie who is everything that Ronnie isn't. He is suave and wants to be sophisicated, looking to bring their empire to newer heights whilst his brother is happy to keep it down and dirty on the streets.

There are other actors in Legend of course and there is not a weak performance among them, it's just that when you appear in a film where there is a performance the likes of Hardys here then it is almost impossible to be appreciated as you would be elsewhere. In particular Emily Browning as Frances is fantastic and once again Taron Egerton is brilliant, I for one cannot wait for his performance in the Eddie the Eagle biopic later this year.

So I have already stated that this is the best work of Helgeland and I will go out on a limb and say that it is also the best I have ever seen Hardy be and here he had me captivated from the moment he appeared on screen for the first time right upto the final credits rolling.

2015 was obviously the year of the mega blockbuster as we saw the likes of Jurassic World, Age of Ultron, Fast 7 and of course Star Wars 7 all pass the billion dollar mark in the last 12 months which has left good to great films like Legend to almost disappear under the radar which is a real shame as in this case it definately deserves all the attention it can get. It also barely made a dent at the box office with takings of $38 million against a budget of $25 million which again is a shame as it deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

I recently scored The Force Awakens 7 out of 10 as I liked it as a movie but felt greatly let down by the fact that it was nothing more than a glorified New Hope 1.5 so going by that score Legend HAS to be worth at least 8.5 and I'm leaning very heavily towards a 9 as I really love this film that much but for the purposes of closure on this review we will stick with my initial feeling and score it a very respectable 8.5 out of 10.