Stylish, unconventional, and unlike anything else in the genre, Peter Medak’s The Krays defies expectations at every opportunity. Any doubts about the ‘stunt casting’ of Gary and Martin Kemp as Ronnie and Reggie Kray are quickly dispelled as soon as they appear on screen, and to realise their personas Medak cleverly leans into their good looks and physical grace to portray them more as feral and psychotic than blunt and thuggish as they make their ferocious rise to the top in London’s crime scene. Even more bold is the screenplay by Philip Ridley which cares less for standard gangster tropes than a dissection of their East End roots and relationships with the women in their lives: their steely mother, Violet (Billie Whitelaw), relatives Aunt Rose (Susan Fleetwood) and May (Charlotte Cornwall), and Reggie’s hapless wife, Frances (Kate Hardie). Violence appears suddenly and in rapid bursts. When it comes it’s extreme, and no viewer will easily forget the scene where Ronnie gives his enemy a ‘Chelsea grin’ by pushing a knife lengthways into his open mouth. Medak shoots The Krays like a horror film, his compositions, lighting and editing augmented by mist, fog, muted colours and Michael Kamen’s unsettling score. If you’re hoping to see a rigorous, historically accurate biopic of the notorious brothers then you’ll likely be disappointed with this controversial sometimes idiosyncratic film, but if you want a bold cinematic interpretation of the Krays legend in an art-house framework this might just be the best thing you’ll see all year.
Bewilderingly out of circulation in the UK (although an excellent Blu-ray recently became available courtesy of Second Sight), Lost Reels is excited to screen a beautiful low fade 16mm print of The Krays provided by The Cinema Museum.
