Legend (2015 film)

Legend is a 2015 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 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, offering 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, Identical twins who terrorised London during the 1950s and 1960s.
 * Emily Browning as Frances Shea, The wife of Reggie Kray. She met Kray at 16 and married him aged 22 in 1965.
 * Colin Morgan as Frankie Shea, Reggie's driver at the Kray Firm, and older brother of Frances. Described as a "young and very good-looking man."
 * Christopher Eccleston as Leonard "Nipper" Read, A Detective Superintendent determined to take down the Krays.
 * David Thewlis as Leslie Payne, The Krays' business manager. He considered himself a cultured man and he was sickened by the twins' violence.
 * Taron Egerton as Edward "Mad Teddy" Smith, A psychopathic gay man rumoured to have had affairs with Ronnie.
 * Chazz Palminteri as Angelo Bruno, The head of the Philadelphia crime family and friend and business associate to Ronnie and Reggie.
 * Paul Bettany as Charlie Richardson, Charlie and his brother Eddie were leaders of a notorious south London gang (also known as the Torture Gang), which had a feud and war with the Krays' gang 'The Firm' during the 1960s.
 * Tara Fitzgerald as Mrs. Shea, Frances and Frankie's mother.
 * Aneurin Barnard as David Bailey, A fashion photographer in the early 1960s.
 * Paul Anderson as Albert Donoghue, The gofer of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, and Reggie's chief lieutenant.
 * 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