Dual control | 10 September 2015

Legend is a biopic of the Kray twins starring Tom Hardy as Reggie and Tom Hardy as Ronnie, so it’s buy one get one free, and this offer will sell the film. It sold it to me, who would otherwise have little interest in the Krays, and was never moved to correspond with either (see Harry Mount’s Arts Feature; I did once write to David Cassidy, but did not receive a reply). So it’s Hardy’s performance(s) that’s the draw, and Hardy is dazzling because Hardy is dazzling, not because Legend is especially dazzling. Indeed, Hardy dazzles in spite of the film, which is muddled, cartoonish, fails to negotiate a clear path between fact and fiction, as is the way with biopics of this type (see also: anything on any of the Great Train Robbers), and will also kick off the debate about the glamorisation of violent criminals, as if we care.