Kray Kray

By F.S.

IF AMERICA has gangsters, the UK has criminals. At least, that is the impression you get from the movies. In Hollywood, the world of organised crime is often glamorous, glitzy and even sentimental. Think "The Godfather" (directed by Francis Ford Coppola) and "Goodfellas" (Martin Scorsese): emotional ties are everything, and complex back-stories and a hint of remorse generate sympathy for otherwise monstrous villains.

By contrast, British criminals such as Jack Carter in 1971's classic gangster flick "Get Carter" (Mike Hodges) tend to be more hard-boiled, occupying a moral vacuum where the streets are even meaner than Scorsese's. Similarly, "The Krays" (Peter Medak) in 1990, the last film to take a look at the twins who ruled London's impoverished East End in the 1960s through extortion and protection rackets, gave us chilling sociopaths and ultraviolence, not fully rounded human beings. Not exactly ideal fodder, you might think, for a studio like Working Title, the British production powerhouse behind "Notting Hill" and "The Theory of Everything".

It is perhaps no surprise, then, that when Working Title decided to retell the tale of Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the tone took an American turn. Tim Bevan, the co-chairman, hired an American writer and director (Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind "L.A. Confidential"). And Mr Bevan has stated categorically that he wanted to emulate gangsters from across the Atlantic, and so set "Legend" apart from other British gangster films. "If you make movies and you’re my age, chances are you went into the business because of gangster movies, because of the Coppolas and Scorseses," he says. "Hence the idea of going to someone who was steeped in the tradition of American gangster movies, and giving ['Legend'] that style and feel."

"Legend" does feel steeped in Hollywood, from an expository voiceover whose purpose seems mainly to explain East Endisms and the Swinging Sixties vibe to foreign audiences, to a more romantic perspective on Reggie's motivations. Reggie, the older twin, is often portrayed as the weaker one, but here he keeps the machinations of the "Firm" running in spite of Ronnie's violent tantrums. He is also perennially torn between his loyalty to his brother and his passion for Frances, the girl who later becomes his wife.

As Frances, Emily Browning, an Australian actress, is excellent—fragile, doe-eyed and naive to just the degree needed for believability. It's unfortunate, then, that the script confines her to a string of clichés, most notably with the entirely unnecessary voiceover, which she delivers with a robotic weariness thankfully missing elsewhere in the film. The script is too neat, and too full of the wisdom of hindsight to match the brutality of the men we are dealing with here. So too for the locations: hardly a set was used during filming, and so the Bethnal Green and Hoxton backstreets of "Legend" feel very much like the gentrified hotspots they are today: quaint and polished, not full of the post-war poverty they were at that time.

It's odd, given Mr Helgeland's credentials that a trite script should be the film's Achilles heel. Luckily,Tom Hardy's performance does much to rescue it. Mr Hardy is no stranger to a technical challenge: in 2013's "Locke", a surprise hit, he is the only actor, seated alone in his car for two hours while making phone calls.

As both Ronnie and Reggie, he is staggering. Aside from very minor prosthetics lending Ronnie a square, more brutish jaw, as well as his trademark thick-rimmed specs, most of the differentiation we see between the two is down entirely to Mr Hardy's clear vision of each: Reggie, the coiffed playboy, running legitimate West End nightclubs and mixing as easily with stars in mink wraps as with the criminal underworld; Ronnie, already an ex-con and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, intent on destruction, and mistrustful of Frances's enthusiasm for a cleaner lifestyle.

Reggie's core moral stance remains just as unclear to the viewer as it does to Frances, and therein lies the plot's strength, despite the dialogue's weaknesses. Mr Hardy imbues him with a softness lacking from his portrayal of Ronnie, whose gaze remains dead-eyed throughout. The use of old-fashioned split screens and the odd body double allows both Mr Hardys to play off against one another, culminating in a bar brawl that is as emotional as it is bloody. To some, "Legend" will seem slick and insightful; to others, its exploration of Reggie's more empathetic side and romantic motivations may feel unduly generous.

One thing is for certain: this is a film carried by its lead—or indeed, its leads. Mr Hardy, in playing non-identical twins, has also done his best to get the utmost out of an Anglo-American hybrid of a film. His Krays are brutal and believable, human and horrible. His portrayal ultimately gets the viewer to feel something more than straightforward disgust for the criminal world, while resisting the full Hollywood sentimentalisation of what is, after all, a vicious life.

"Legend" is released in Britain on September 9th and in America on October 2nd