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Dom Robinson reviews 
- Cat.no: 043 112 2
- Cert: 18
- Running time: 115 minutes
- Year: 1990
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 18 plus extras
- Sound: Stereo
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £17.99
- Extras : Scene index, Featurette: “Flesh & Blood: The Story of The Krays”
Director:
- Peter Medak
(The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Let Him Have It, Species 2, TV: The Professionals)
Producers:
- Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis
Screenplay:
- Philip Ridley
Music:
- Michael Kamen
Cast:
- Ronald Kray: Gary Kemp (The Bodyguard, Paper Marriage)
Reggie Kray: Martin Kemp (Daydream Believer, Embrace of the Vampire, Lost In Time, TV: Eastenders)
Violet Kray: Billie Whitelaw (Deadly Advice, Frenzy, Maurice, The Omen, The Water Babies)
Jack “The Hat” McVitie: Tom Bell (The L-Shaped Room, Let Him Have It, Preaching to the Perverted, Prospero’s Books, Quest for Love, Swing, TV: The Cinder Path, Prime Suspect 2 & 3)
Frances: Kate Hardie (Heart, Melancholia)
Steve: Gary Love (TV: Soldier Soldier)
George Cornell: Steven Berkoff (Another 9½ Weeks, Beverly Hills Cop, Decadence, Fair Game, Flynn, Under The Cherry Moon, TV: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, War and Rememberance)
The Krays: the two brothers you’d least like to meet down a dark alleyway, after, perhaps, Grant and Phil Mitchell.
Ruling the underworld in the East End of London during the 50s and 60s, Ronnie (Gary Kemp) and Reggie (Martin Kemp set forth and wage their war against the undesirables. Putting the characters from the most vile members of society into two pretty boys from Spandau Ballet could have backfired dramatically, but thankfully it comes off perfectly, each with a manic look in their eyes as they take out the trash. More recently Martin Kemp has headed back to the East End as a key member of the cast in the BBC soap set in the area.
Add to that welcome support from Billie Whitelaw as their mother, Violet, completely oblivious to the antics of “Mummy’s little boys”, nasty acts like Jack “The Hat” McVitie (Tom Bell) and George Cornell (Steven Berkoff) and a wife-to-be in the form of Frances (Kate Hardie), comedian Bill Oddie’s daughter in real life.
Talking of real life, by the time 1970 was a year away, they were each sentenced to thirty years in the “Queen’s Hotel” and already one of them has passed on to the other side.
Like Quadrophenia, the print used is fullscreen. Nothing to see in the way of artifacts, but it’s hardly the best print that’s been used, with scratches and flecks often to be seen. It can comfortably be zoomed to fill a widescreen TV without much loss of important picture information. The average bitrate is 5.92Mb/s, often peaking over 8Mb/s.
The soundtrack is stereo and doesn’t particularly impress much – a shame as they could’ve made a surround-sound treat out of the “shooting up the bar” scene. The film is mostly a downbeat affair so the chance to utilise songs from each era wasn’t taken.
Extras :
Chapters : 18 chapters – the usual amount for Universal DVDs, from a company previously known as Polygram, but a few more wouldn’t go amiss. There is no theatrical trailer.
Languages & Subtitles : English in stereo and subtitles in the same language for the deaf and hard of hearing.
Featurette: “Flesh & Blood: The Story of The Krays” : A 54-minute featurette about those who knew, or simply knew of, The Krays, which also features on the double-tape video boxset which has been out for some time. What we also get here though, are English subtitles for the hard of hearing and five chapters, splitting up the proceedings. More would have been nice, but it’s a better number than the one long 90-minute chapter for 12 Monkeys’ Hamster Factor.
Menu : Static and silent, the Kemp brothers grimace towards camera as the Krays, mirroring the DVD cover. Options are available to start the film, select a scene, toggle the subtitles on/off or watch the featurette.
Overall : An excellent British film with a top-class script and cast, but content-wise, nothing more than you’d find on the video. If you have to have this on the shiny format, try and get it at a discount and not the full £17.99. FILM : ***** PICTURE QUALITY : *** SOUND QUALITY: ** EXTRAS: ** ——————————- OVERALL: *** Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.