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Tripwire Reviews Legend 4K Restoration On Blu-Ray Now

Published

8 months ago

November 30, 2025

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Identity Crisis

Tripwire’s editor-in-chief Joel Meadows takes a look at Brian Helgeland’s Legend, on 4K now…

Legend
Director: Brian Helgeland
Stars: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning and Taron Egerton

Hollywood has been obsessed with gangsters since the days of Jimmy Cagney and the 1930s. It seems that a year doesn’t go by without a gangster film at the cinema. The story of the Krays, East London’s vicious gangster brothers, has already been told on the big screen in Philip Medak’s 1990 movie The Krays. Legend starring Tom Hardy as both Kray brothers was released in cinemas a decade ago and it’s now got the 4K restoration treatment. Director Brian Helgeland, best known as the screenwriter on acclaimed US films like LA Confidential and Mystic River, did feel like a slightly unusual choice.

So Legend, which tells the story of London’s most infamous gangsters is a frustrating affair. Hardy is sometimes a versatile actor and his portrayal of Reggie, the more sympathetic of the two, does display nuance and empathy at times. His relationship with East End girl Frances (Browning) who meets a rather unfortunate end does offer a little bit of an emotional core here. However, Hardy’s Ronnie veers often into cartoonish exaggeration, throwing the viewer out of the story. The supporting cast like Christopher Eccleston as Nipper Read, the copper who was determined to bring them to justice, John Sessions as sleazy Tory Mp Lord Boothby and Egerton as Reggie’s sidekick Teddy Smith aren’t bad but they feel like they have little to do except act as bit players in the Krays’ story. Helgeland moves the action along at a decent clip but Legend feels rather silly at times.

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The extras here are decent enough, giving us a little insight via interviews with Hardy and the rest of the cast including Eccleston and Egerton and a fun interactive map giving viewers a little extra information on key places in the film.

The restoration does make the picture quality a little sharper but since this is a film that’s only a decade old, it doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Legend is a disappointing film as Hardy’s Reggie offers a little subtlety but his Ronnie lacks any kind of nuance at all. If fans of British gangster films haven’t seen this, it’s worth watching but with some real reservations.