True History of The Kelly Gang
George MacKay as Ned Kelly
I think people will recall Tony Richardson’s 1970 version of Ned Kelly which wrangled the idea of putting a rock star (in that film's case, Mick Jagger) in the role of one of Australia’s most notorious outlaws. Now, filmmaker Justin Kurzel (who directed ‘Snowtown’ about the infamous South Australian murders and did a terrific version of ‘Macbeth’ with Michael Fassbender) bounces back from directing the poorly received Assassins Creed, to direct this electrifying interpretation of Peter Carey’s Man Booker Prize winning novel of the same name, using a similar conceit. Although this version takes the ‘rockstar as outlaw' idea one step further.
George MacKay stars as Ned. MacKay is currently starring as the lead in 1917, here he does a bang up job with the Australian accent and channels the punk-inspired, glam rock swagger of performers like Iggy Pop or David Bowie in his performance as Ned Kelly, while delivering a version of Ned Kelly who’s tightly coiled and explosively violent.
It opens with the quote ‘Nothing in this story is true’ – which pretty explicitly tells you that this film is not trying to be factually accurate. Thematically, its more interested in the idea of how a true event becomes mythologised each time its re-interpreted.
The basic plot IS based in truth and the story plays out much as you’d expect a Ned Kelly story to play out but it’s the take-no-prisoners, balls-out attitude of the film and the highly stylized production design and cinematography that add an adrenalised surrealism that makes for a searing two hours of cinema.
The story predominantly centers on the relationship between Ned (George Mackay) and his mother Ellen (played by Essie Davis), they live in country Victoria and Ellen attempts to provide for her children by taking on a series of lovers, including the notorious bushranger Harry Power (played brilliantly by Russell Crowe). Power agrees to take on the young Ned as an apprentice of sorts and to teach him robbery, gunplay and mainly, survival. After some time, Kelly eventually leaves Power and returns to his family's home, where he then has a number of run-ins with the law and the story we know so well then kicks in. The relationship between a toxic father figure and son looms large – something that was the focus of the central relationship in Snowtown.
True History of the Kelly Gang feels anachronistic and very modern in its attitude and tone but it’s steeped in historical details and strange colloquial language - dirt-poetry one could call it and telling the story of Kelly’s notorious criminal career, fashioned as a visual assault of snow covered landscapes straight out of Tarantino’s Hateful Eight , golden amber-lit brothels, cold and rugged country Victoria log cabins and a strobe lit, hallucinogenic show down with police at the Glenrowan Inn, that is stamped with such starkly designed imagery that at times it felt like something out of Sin City. Visually stunning with a great cast (Nicholas Hoult, Essie Davis, Charlie Hunnam, Russell Crowe and Earl ‘Son of Nick’ Cave, it’s inventive, it’s polarising and it deals with the origins of the Australian identity and how we re-interpret our history the further we get from it. It’s easily one of the best Australian films I’ve seen in recent years, its just a shame it’s streaming because it demands to be seen on the biggest screen available.