The film is narrated by Reggie Kray’s wife, played by Emily Browning, which seemed like a promising choice. Not to ignore the terms of a heterosexual white masculinity convinced that violence is second nature, but violence isn’t that significant when it comes to family for the Krays – it’s just a normality! Both are left bruised but it is Ronald that suffers the most, both in the fight and upon completion of the entire movie. So it is not a case of ‘there is a fine line between love and hate’ and how fighting equals passion. Fighting is a natural instinct for these boys and the fights here – although minus weapons – are just like the fights they have with their other rivals. It’s an astounding watch upon the realisation that these two are twin brothers – minus the fact it is Tom Hardy literally fighting himself – tearing pieces off each other like animals and reminding us that brotherhood isn’t all that, really. It is more magnificent than that scene in Matrix Revolutions where a 7 or so minute long rainfall is the backing track to a restless Neo fighting his enemy -and that’s saying something! This particular fight scene in Legend is just as heavy and descriptive. They fight each other twice and during the first time, you can’t stop watching.
The whole movie is about the twins’ relationship and the obstacles that they are forced to confront such as wives, the police and fancy American businessmen. Legend examines the fragility of the family, concentrating on the specificity of twin brothers. Sure, you MIGHT feel warm recognising the brothers’ bond but otherwise, these were terrible people and its more horrifying to sympathise with these characters despite their shortcomings. Legend would rather leave you with a cold reaction. Legend isn’t a Family Movie obviously, it is a very real look at the conflicts of ‘unconditional’ love. The family movie is rated either PG or U for Universal (anyone can watch it!) they’re connotative with the idea of ‘feeling good’ or ‘feeling warm’. There’s a conflict when you think the family’s not going to survive as a unit that is overall and strong – then the resolution where we realise the family is a comfortable setting to be. The distinction between family movies and movies about family is that the Family Movie has some resolution. Furthermore, this notion of ‘humanity’- whilst its meaning can be controversial and ambiguous – takes little effort once matched with the Peggy Mitchell loyalty of “faaaamily”. The film wants to elaborate on much more than what the typical civilian has read about the Kray twins, it attempts to do this through moving pictures and Tom Hardy’s excellence.
Via Wikipedia: ‘Helgeland said the film would concentrate on Reggie’s attempts to control the psychopathic tendencies of his younger twin.’) I thought the most obvious choice would be to show the humanity behind the actions of monsters. Without doing necessary background research into the actual words of the film’s crew, I came up with my own suggestion that would hopefully match the truth. Watching Legend – a story about infamous London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray – made me wonder what motivations the director had to illustrate a chronological period of real-life gangsters of 1960’s London.