Legend (2015 film)
Legend is a 2015 British-French 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 rise and fall, the relationship that bound them together, and follows their gruesome career to imprisonment for life in 1969.
This is Helgeland's fifth feature film. Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, David Thewlis and Christopher Eccleston star with Colin Morgan, Chazz Palminteri, Paul Bettany, Tara Fitzgerald and Taron Egerton as well as the singer Duffy featured in supporting roles.
Plot
In the 1960s, Reggie Kray is a former boxer who has become an important part of the criminal underground in London. At the start of the film, his twin brother Ron is locked up in a psychiatric hospital for paranoid schizophrenia. Reggie uses threats to obtain the premature release of his brother, who is rapidly discharged from hospital. The two brothers unite their efforts to control a large part of London's criminal underworld. One of their first efforts is to muscle-in on the control of a local nightclub, using extortion and brutal violence.Reggie enters into a relationship with Frances, the sister of his driver, and they ultimately marry; however, he is imprisoned for a previous criminal conviction, which he cannot evade. While Reggie is in prison, Ron's mental instability and violent temperament lead to severe financial setbacks at the nightclub. The club is almost forced to close after Ron scares away most of the customers. On the first night after Reggie's release from prison, the brothers have an all-out fist fight, but they manage to partially patch things up.
The brothers are approached by Angelo Bruno of the Philadelphia crime family who, on behalf of Meyer Lansky and the American Mafia, wants to engage them in a crime syndicate deal. Bruno agrees to a fifty-fifty deal with Reggie to split London's underground gambling profits in exchange for local protection by the brothers. Initially, this system is highly lucrative for the Kray brothers. Ron's barely concealed volatility results in him publicly murdering George Cornell, an associate of the Torture Gang, rivals of the Krays. As a result, Scotland Yard opens a full investigation of the Kray brothers.
Reggie beats and rapes Frances and she leaves him. Reggie then approaches her to start afresh, and has a fight with her brother. Frances steps in and stops the fight, Reggie then offers her a holiday to Ibiza. Instead she is found dead after committing suicide with an overdose of prescription drugs. The brothers' criminal activities continue and Ron pays petty criminal Jack McVitie to kill Leslie Payne, Reggie's partner, who controls the legal side of the Krays' operations. He only wounds Payne, who then turns the brothers over to Detective Superintendent Leonard "Nipper" Read, the head of the investigation. Reggie finds out and brutally stabs McVitie with a knife during a party hosted by Ron. The testimony given by Payne means that Ron is arrested and charged with Cornell's murder. The final scene shows a police squad breaking down the door to Reggie's flat in order to apprehend him for McVitie's murder.
The closing captions indicate both brothers receiving criminal convictions for murder. They died five years apart, Ron from a heart attack in 1995, and Reggie from cancer in 2000.
Cast
- Tom Hardy as Ronald "Ronnie" Kray and Reginald "Reggie" Kray
- Emily Browning as Frances Shea
- Colin Morgan as Frankie Shea
- Christopher Eccleston as Leonard "Nipper" Read
- David Thewlis as Leslie Payne
- Taron Egerton as Edward "Mad Teddy" Smith
- Chazz Palminteri as Angelo Bruno
- Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson
- Tara Fitzgerald as Mrs Shea, Frances and Frankie's mother.
- Aneurin Barnard as David Bailey
- Paul Anderson as Albert Donoghue
- Duffy as Timi Yuro
- Kevin McNally as Harold Wilson
- John Sessions as Lord Boothby
- Alex Giannini as Antonio Caponigro
- Sam Spruell as Jack McVitie
- Adam Fogerty as Big Pat
Production
Development
On 12 October 2013, it was announced that Brian Helgeland had written a script and would be directing a film focusing on the life of Reggie Kray who, with identical brother Ronald, formed the notorious Kray twins. Helgeland said the film would concentrate on Reggie's attempts to control the psychopathic tendencies of his younger twin.Helgeland spoke of hanging out in London with well-known Krays associate Freddie Foreman, saying, "I had drinks with him in his local haunt. When we finished he got up to go and they feted him at the bar. I said to him, 'what about the bill?' and he replied, 'we don't pay.'"
Helgeland attended the Cannes Film Festival with Working Title's Tim Bevan and Chris Clark to talk to potential buyers of the film and showing test footage of Hardy playing the twins.
Casting
On 18 April 2014, it was announced that Helgeland would write and direct the film, with the shooting being based in the United Kingdom and with Hardy starring as the male leads. Five days later it was stated that Browning was in negotiations for a role as the film's female lead. Hardy was so set on playing Reggie Kray that he proposed to Helgeland that if he gave him the role of Reggie, Hardy would play the role of Ron for free.Filming
Crews and cast were spotted filming scenes at Falmouth Road, London, St Anne's Limehouse in Limehouse and in the Windmill Walk area around London Waterloo.Filming also took place in Caradoc Street in Greenwich, in the Cedra Estate on Cazenove Road and in Gibson Gardens, both of which are in Hackney.
Principal photography started on 12 June 2014. The film was released in September 2015.
Release
Financing for Legend was provided by StudioCanal, which also distributed the film throughout the territories of the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand and Germany in addition to handling international sales, which started at the beginning of the Cannes Film Festival. On 30 April 2014, Brian Oliver's Cross Creek Pictures acquired the North American distribution rights to Legend from StudioCanal, with a planned 2015 theatrical release through Universal Pictures in its distribution deal with the studio and Oliver also named as a producer on the film. Sales to other territories such as Asia, Africa and much of Europe are being completed. The film was originally set for a 2 October 2015, U.S. release, but it was moved to 20 November 2015.Legend premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 12 September 2015 at Roy Thomson Hall.