Should have included a ''thank you'' to Scorsese in the credits

I just got around to taking a look at this film last night, and while I feel that watching Hardy play dual roles as the brothers made the film (marginally) worth a watch, I had a lot of issues with the focus of the story, and also its presentation.

For one, having the film told from the viewpoint of Reg's teenage wife was annoying. Maybe a filmmaker such as Terrence Malick could have made genius out of the observations of a fluff-headed twinkie, but here it I found it just a distraction and it didn't serve making a film about gangsters as gritty and hard-hitting as it should have been. And it was a cheat, too, to have her narrating from beyond the grave and making her comments wise beyond her years, too, because what we were hearing her say didn't jibe with her character's innocence and naivite' during the film's present action. It's as though in Good Fellas Scorsese would have had the entire film narrated by only Lorraine Bracco's character. It definitely was intended to offer the same sort of insights that came from the voice-over narration like Liotta and Bracco supplied for that film. Only in Good Fellas, though, one of the narrators was the actual gangster who had been present during the criminal portions of the film, whereas here the little chippie girlfriend probably didn't witness any of it.

And speaking of Good Fellas, there were too many stylistic parts in Legend that were nods to that film that went overboard from being just homages to downright rip-offs of structure and tone that became distracting. Primarily, I'm thinking of the use of the period pop music that blanketed the film as a soundtrack in place of actual music...it was so obviously done in the manner of Good Fellas that Scorses should have received a "thank you" in the credits. Also, the way many of the scenes were structured and shot also screamed out that Helgeland had been watching GF and taking notes for what to rip-off when directing this film. The tracking-following shot of Reggie and his date entering his nightclud to get a table was a weak imitation of an almost identical scene in GF.

And the use of Ron as a comedic foil for his brother also slipped into Good Fellas territory during both straight dramatic "home life" scenes as well as the gangster portions, because again it just seemed like a variation on Joe Pesci's Nicky character from GF. There were a few times when Ron said something crazy and other characters laughed at him I nearly expected the next words out of his mouth would be "You think I'm funny?!"





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