So I decided to read and remark upon all the awards scripts that are going around in Caty’s excellent post.
Legend takes another look at the brutish Kray brothers, twin thugs, one of them a violent paranoid schitzophrenic, who scaled the heights of gangsterdom in London the the 60s. No new ground is broken in the story. All the tropes are in place; the tormented gangster’s wife, the loyal mother, the growing tension caused by Ron’s instability, the closing in of the cops…it’s all familiar and the script doesn’t make the case that the two criminals deserve the glamorization they get as the titular legend.
Of course, there’s Tom Hardy to watch in the film, who is always worth the time.
If this was a competition script, I would find it problematic because of the lack of freshness in the characters and crime story as written.
Project recommendation: Pass