Rent True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)

Disappointing - True History of the Kelly Gang review by PD

I was really looking forward to this one - having liked director Justin Kurzel’s take on MacBeth, I was anticipating a unique take with a fresh delivery. The first section (Kelly as boy, played brilliantly by Orlando Schwerdt, with a nice turn from Russell Crowe) certainly delivers; it's thoroughly gripping and convincing, with some great camerawork and lighting, top notch acting and a great buildup, but all is undone by a terribly disappointing second part (Kelly as man played by George Mackay). It's like someone trying too hard to be edgy/quirky/unique, and not coming close to any of them, and it’s so cliche-ridden that's it's difficult to suspend disbelief and take seriously at times. And it's never a good sign when both myself and my sister (a self-confessed Ned Kelly geek from Melbourne) start double screening during the final shootout. Peter Carey's novel deserves better treatment than this, I'm afraid.

What utter Rubbish - True History of the Kelly Gang review by AB

Was really looking forward to this film .. Great cast but what were they thinking .... i waited for the story to improve but i just was chaos .

Flashy but thought provoking - True History of the Kelly Gang review by JB

The story of the homicidal Australian Bush-ranger Ned Kelly has itself been done to death but director Justin Kurzel (of the 2015 Michael Fassbender Macbeth) has given it a bold and bruised crack here.

Adapted from the Peter Carey novel, we follow Ned's disturbing childhood here almost as much as his infamous (short) adulthood. He loses his abusive father at a young age, grows up in poverty, and when still very young, is "rescued" from it all by bush ranger Russell Crowe, who buys him from his mother (Essie Davis) but exposes Ned to his first taste of robbery and murder. Flash forward a few years, Kelly's now got his own gang and is played by a muscled, sinewy George Mackay, full of anger and no direction.

Unpopular opinion alert- I didn't love Kurzel's Macbeth, which to me felt like Shakespeare watered down and luridly visually adorned for the Instagram generation, and there's a bit of that here… beautifully shot vistas occasionally given precedence over substance. The use of strobe lighting, sped up shots of weather and high contrast photography also don't really add much.

However, there's a lot more depth in this movie - the focus on Kelly's childhood gives the story some excellent context, for example, and the time given to Kelly's own writings and how they're then used against him is interesting too. It's also really well cast and Davis and Mackay are particularly good, despite occasionally thin material. Finally, the film is spectacularly violent and loud, in a way that's properly bracing.

Although I still struggled to get emotionally involved in the later sections (Kurzel's actors can only pump so much nuance into the relationships rather lacking in the script), and it does seem rather over stylised (like a kind of macho Baz Luhrmann movie), there's a lot of great stuff here and it's a worthy addition to the long list of Ned Kelly lore.