With Tom Hardy starring as both Reginald ''Reggie" and Ronald "Ronnie" Kray, He did not disappoint. The fraternal compassion he showed as each brother was unbelievable. Though definitely the most volatile out of the two brothers, Ronnie's character had both edge and humour, With his openness about his sexuality (which you did not get in that generation) and his love for violence he openly admitted his love for the gangster lifestyle. Ronnie's character presented not just the gangster lifestyle but one of a paranoid schizophrenic, which you gather is incredibly dangerous for others around him, His outbursts would have lead to many more deaths if it wasn't for his brother. Reggie, who was presented to be the most intelligent and business wise, was seen to have fallen in love with a women named Frances. The audience saw there loves high and lows and tragic end, Though disturbing towards the end of their relationship you see Reggie in a drunken state, mock Frances and leads to an insinuated abusive scene, which illustrated how he could even turn on the ones he loved.
Though with Frances's character I was confused with the narrative method , although I could see why they had used her as the narrator, to present the tale through innocent eyes and not either of the twins as it could have possibly come across as if they were justifying the actions that they made in their life of crime, when really the film is made to illustrate the terrible things they had done. But once Frances passes away, her narrative almost becomes irrelevant and should have maybe been taken over by Reggie or Ron for the remainder of the film just to have given you a taste of their perspective of their downfall.
Though the film does show a fair amount of the crime lords shady dealings, The film very much focuses on Reggie and Frances's relationship, fitting this film into a new genre of dark romance which I liked however I did expect to see more of Reggie and Ronnie, Whereas instead I saw a lot more of Reggie with Frances and Ronnie with his henchmen. With Reggie constantly promising Frances ''to go straight'', He can't seem to help himself and he is always seeming to be drawn back to his brother and their nasty ways, even so this doesn't keep Frances away although she is shown to spiral out of control with worry and fear of being without him whether it be through her leaving him, Reggie going to prison, or Reggie dying through his thug and rivalry antics. Though when Frances did come to her tragic death, we did see Reggie's downfall which showed a vulnerable side to him and made the audience realise he was truly in love with her and her death killed him on the inside.
Ronnie on the other hand, as before mentioned, an open homosexual, you see his henchman as his lovers also, it was insinuated that Ron took many lovers due to his love of parties and wild social life. We even see a scandal that broke out about his relationship with a political representative, although was classed as something that he had done to get what he wanted, not because he was interested in the political figure.
It's 18 certificate rating gave me the impression that I would be seeing some dark incredibly graphic gory scenes, but only two scenes stood out to give this rating any backing, and that was a medium shot of a man getting shot in the head, where you can clearly see blood spraying the wall behind him, and also towards the end of the film where a man gets stabbed repeatedly in a wide shot for what goes on for a good 30-40 seconds. Though this film did have some dark scenes I believe that it was balanced by humour, Both twins brought comedic entertainment throughout the film, showing the audience what real cockney humour is about, particularly with Ron Kray.
The CGI used in this film was excellent as well, the shots that were used were flawless, making even small details like their shadows line up to where they should be. The fight scene between the two was a very personal scene, which had a close eye on detail. This was the scene that impressed me the most ,as I presume it was a scene that had to be worked on a long due to hardy playing both roles, and a fighting scene would be both extremely difficult and impressive if they could pull it off with precision and detail, which they did exceptionally. In this scene you really gather the brothers compassion for each other, as Reggie knows Ron gets out of control, So instead of going crazy and fighting in a way that could really hurt him, he tries to snap him out of this outburst, although he does have to smash a bottle over his head to get him to stop, But almost straight after the brothers apologise and show love towards each other, which showed how close they were to make up after such a heated fight.
The twins as a package were an outstanding performance by Tom hardy, who's portrayal of the brothers relationship showed such a complex perspective that I didn't expect to be as good as it was. The brothers seemed to quarrel often, though they always were shown as a team, always looking out for one another (more on Reggie's part) , and showed that family came before everything and which ultimately lead to their collapse. Though the last words spoken between the twins were perceived as negative I still saw some compassion with it as well "because I can't kill you!", I view it as a positive as although his twin has caused him grief and even landed him in prison at some stages he can't bring himself to do to him what he would do to anyone else if they had done this, But because Ron's his brother and is one of the few people that were left that he could actually rely on and trust, Reggie wouldn't harm him. Though I would say there seemed to be a part of hatred in the statement but a hate that he could still love him.
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