True History of the Kelly Gang another swing-and-a-miss in bushranger biopics
The movie may be called True History of the Kelly Gang but it is disarmingly straight up about not sticking to known, verified facts, with the opening title declaring “nothing you are about to see is true” proving correct.
Leigh Paatsch
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Poor old Ned Kelly just can’t take a trick at the movies.
There has never been a big-screen reading of the late bushranger that has truly captured the essence of one of this nation’s most divisive and defining historical figures.
The two most notable jabs at a Kelly biopic were both dull swing-and-a-miss affairs.
In 1970, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was so far out of his depth as Ned, he needed an oxygen tank. In 2003, the late, great Heath Ledger botched the same role, albeit with more charisma than his predecessor.
And now, in 2020, we have True History of the Kelly Gang, an adaptation of Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel.
While no-one could accuse the new movie of being all that dull – fat chance of that with its overabundant supply of cross-dressing cattle duffers, mullet-haired miscreants, and tattooed toughs – it remains in a fixed state of swinging and missing throughout.
In keeping with Carey’s self-styled “reimagination” of the Kelly legend, this abrasively ambiguous production won’t be concerning itself with sticking to known, verified facts.
The opening title card is disarmingly straight up about this: “nothing you are about to see is true,” it states, and so it indeed proves to be.
Instead, the viewer is treated to a trifecta of highly strung and highly stylised fantasies – titled Boy, Man and Monitor- indirectly informed by faint traces of the actual Kelly biography.
To be frank, only the first section of True History of the Kelly Gang can be deemed successful in any way.
The young actor who plays Kelly as a child, Orlando Schwerdt, channels the formative fury and despair of his character with a force and clarity that is truly remarkable.
If you have any doubts, just stick around for the scenes where the kid goes head-to-head with Russell Crowe (playing bushranger Harry Power) and more than holds his own.
Once the role of Kelly reverts to British import George MacKay (soon to be a major star after people catch his astonishing work in 1917, also out this week) the movie shifts into a mode of encrypted complacency that will have most everyday viewers scratching their heads.
While True History of the Kelly Gang is more than capable of plucking genuinely arresting moments, images and inklings from thin air – the mesmerising Glenrowan shootout in the final act is a perfect example of the movie at its best – there just are not enough of them to truly satisfy.
TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG (MA15+)
Director: Justin Kurzel (Snowtown)
Starring: George Mackay, Orlando Schwerdt, Essie Davis, Russell Crowe.
Rating: **1/2
Such is life(less)
True History of the Kelly Gang is now showing at the Sun Yarraville, Lido Hawthorn, Classic Elsternwick and Cameo Belgrave.
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