Ned Kelly (2003)

• Year: 2003
• Released: 26 Mar 2004
• Country: Australia, United Kingdom, United States, France
• Adwords: 3 wins & 14 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277941/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ned_kelly
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/ned-kelly
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English, Cantonese
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography
• Runtime: 110 min
• Writer: Robert Drewe, John Michael McDonagh
• Director: Gregor Jordan
• Cast: Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush
• Keywords: 19th century, gang, australia, resistance, australian western,

	6.4/10
	56/100

Ned Kelly Storyline

Though recognized for heroism as a lad, Ned Kelly can not escape the stigma of being the eldest of a brood sired by a known criminal. In days when an arrest equaled guilt and a conviction, his unfair imprisonment for horse thievery puts him steadfast, in the eyes of Victorian police, on the wrong side of things for life. With a sister unable to dissuade the unwanted advances of Constable Fitzpatrick, Ned, his brother Dan, and friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart soon find themselves labeled “an outlaw gang” by the less-than-honorable constable. It’s a designation they’re apt to live up to after Ned’s mother is unfairly arrested and sentenced to three years hard labor. In retaliation, the Kelly Gang strikes out against the oppressive Victorian government, with ultimately tragic results and passage into Australian folklore.

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Ned Kelly Movie Reviews

Dry treatment of a legend

The story of Ned Kelly has been enshrouded in myth and exaggeration for time out of hand, and this film is no exception. What ensures Ned Kelly has a permanent place in history is the effort he went to in order to even the odds against the policemen hunting him. During several battles, he marched out wearing plates of beaten iron, off which the bullets available to police at the time would harmlessly bounce. Indeed, it is only because there were a few bright sparks among the Victorian police who noticed he hadn’t plated up his legs that he was captured and hanged. The story has been told in schools and histories of Australia for so long that some permutations of the story have, ironically, become boring. The more the stories try to portray Kelly as some inhuman or superhuman monster, the less people pay attention.

Which is where this adaptation of Our Sunshine, a novel about the Kelly legend, excels. Rather than attempting to portray a Ned Kelly who is as unfeeling as the armour he wore, the film quickly establishes him as a human being. Indeed, the reversal of the popular legend, showing the corruption of the Victorian police and the untenable situation of the colonists, goes a long way to make this film stand out from the crowd. Here, Ned Kelly is simply a human being living in a time and place where in order to be convicted of murder, one simply had to be the nearest person to the corpse when a policeman found it. No, I am not making that up. About the only area where the film errs is by exaggerating the Irish versus English mentality of the battles. While the Kelly gang were distinctly Irish, Australia has long been a place where peoples of wildly varied ethnicities have mixed together almost seamlessly (a scene with some Chinese migrants highlights this).

Heath Ledger does an amazing job of impersonating Australia’s most notorious outlaw. It is only because of the fame he has found in other films that the audience is aware they are watching Ledger and not Kelly himself. Orlando Bloom has finally found a role in which he doesn’t look completely lost without his bow, and Geoffrey Rush’s appearance as the leader of the police contingent at Glenrowan goes to show why he is one of the most revered actors in that desolate little island state. But it is Naomi Watts, appearing as Julia Cook, who gets a bit of a bum deal in this film. Although the film basically implies that Cook was essentially the woman in Ned Kelly’s life, but you would not know that from the minimal screen time that she gets here. Indeed, a lot of the film’s hundred and ten minutes feels more freeze-dried than explorative. Once the element of police corruption is established, in fact, the film rockets along so fast at times that it almost feels rushed.

Unfortunately, most of the film’s strengths are not capitalised upon. Rush barely gets more screen time than his name does in the opening and closing credits. Ditto for Watts, and the rest of the cast come off a little like mannequins. I can only conclude that another fifteen, or even thirty, minutes of footage might have fixed this. But that leads to the other problem, in that the lack of any depth or background to characters other than the titular hero leaves the events of the story with zero impact. One scene manages to do the speech-making thing well, but unfortunately, it all becomes a collage of moments with no linking after a while. If one were to believe the impression that this film creates, a matter of weeks, even days, passes between the time that Ned Kelly becomes a wanted man on the say-so of one corrupt policeman, and the infamous shootout at Glenrowan. Annoyingly, the trial and execution of Ned Kelly is not even depicted here, simply referred to in subtitles before the credits roll.

That said, aside from some shaky camera-work at times, Ned Kelly manages to depict some exciting shootouts, and it has a good beginning. For that reason, I rated it a seven out of ten. Other critics have not been so kind, so if you’re not impressed by shootouts with unusual elements (and what could more more unusual than full body armour in a colonial shootout?), then you might be better off looking elsewhere. Especially if you want a more factual account of Ned Kelly’s life.

Not bad, but fails to grab

Having known nothing of the real story behind the famous Australian outlaw, I sat down to watch NED KELLY, ready to be informed and entertained. Well, I was informed, but entertained? Not particularly.

The problem with NED KELLY is that the story is slim, the characters frankly unappealing, and there isn’t really anyone to root for. Heath Ledger’s almost amateurish performance in the leading role makes it hard for the reader to warm to his character, and Orlando Bloom isn’t much better. Naomi Watts, as a token love interest, is even worse.

There are flashes of drama and some decent moments, not least that climax, but too much of the production is given over to ponderous soap opera instead of hard-hitting drama. In some places, NED KELLY has a TV movie-style atmosphere, playing it safe by staying superficial instead of getting to the nitty gritty of the characters and the situation.

simplistic overwrought western

A young Ned Kelly saved a boy from drowning. In 1871, Ned (Heath Ledger) finds a horse and rides it into town. He is accused of stealing the horse against incompetent corrupt cops. After 18 months in prison, he’s released trying to live the straight and narrow. He is taken with married English lady Julia Cook (Naomi Watts). His sister Kate is harassed by Constable Fitzpatrick and their horses are stolen by the jealous police. Ned steals them back. Soon things get out of hand. Ned is accused of attempted murder and goes on the run with his brother Dan, friends Joe Byrne (Orlando Bloom) and Steve Hart. Superintendent Francis Hare (Geoffrey Rush) is brought in to hunt the gang down.

Everything is just so over-the-top melodramatic. The Kellys are the angels of the earth. The police are all drunken Keystone Cops. Even the music is overwrought. He’s such a great guy that he lets the cops fire the first shot even though he pointing the gun right at them. It wears me down until I don’t care if the Kellys are the good guys. The characters are too simplistic. And somebody turn down the music.