Post by CrazyGirl on Jun 20, 2004 6:51:22 GMT -5
Ned Kelly
Actors: Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Naomi Watts, Geoffrey Rush
Director: Gregor Jordan
Summary: "Ned Kelly": Up the Long Ladder and Down the Short Rope
With so many talented Australian actors appearing in films set in virtually every country (even the American Wild West, Cate Blanchett in "Missing"), it's a pleasure to find an ensemble of first-rate performers taking a break and filming a potted but entertaining "history" film about their own country.
Ned Kelly began to deviate from the path of the semi-straight and not all that narrow in 1871. By 1875 he dangled from the hangman's noose-he was just 25 and 32,000 Australians who could write their names did just that and petitioned in vain for remission of the death sentence. To some today he's a folk hero. I suspect most Australians couldn't care less about him.
The real Ned Kelly was a criminal and a murderer. He might also have had a touch of the "Billy the Kid" pathology. He probably was loyal, as in the film, to friends and family - he was hardly a Robin Hood and that hardy benefactor of the downtrodden never existed either, at least not in the form Errol Flynn gave him.
Australian filmmakers tend to have a permanent, immovable chip on their shoulders when they do a tale of the travails of their country under English rule (for example, "Breaker Morant" and "Gallipoli"). These anti-colonialist movies almost invariably distort history but also, often, they do so with considerable acting power, an interesting story and engaging scenery. All three are in abundance in "Ned Kelly."
Director Gregor Jordan shapes a young Irishman, Ned Kelly, who lives with his mom, sisters and brothers. He doesn't seem to have pursued any gainful career although he's great with horses, other people's preferably. Almost at the beginning of the film he's clapped into prison for horsestealing, an act made to seem light by the unjustified, brutal beating the arresting officer gives him.
Oh yes, we're in that staple of movies, the poor, proud, oppressed and family-bonded Irish trying to just enjoy life with its liquid pleasures while the English and their Irish minions destroy their little bit of happiness. A loutish and horny policeman goes after Ned sister when he's away and the moron does this in front of the gal's two adult brothers who beat him up. Next Ned's sainted mother is clapped into jail, make that "gaol," on false charges of wounding the lecherous officer.
Ned's response, in this story: take up a life of crime, kill a few police officers, rob some banks, burn mortgage papers of the poor, give an old man back his silver watch so that this Aussie mirror of the James gang won't be seen as common criminals. I take that back-the James brothers never bothered to articulate the facade projected here.
Heath Ledger is a fine Ned Kelly-he believes in family values (even when he's having it off with a local squire's young wife, played with bland understatement by the talented Naomi Watts). The story doesn't really need a love interest but if there has to be one, she's beautiful.
Kelly and his gang, on the run and on the rampage, are hunted by a police superintendent brought in from another colony, Cape Town. Here's Geoffrey Rush in a small and comfortable role that he found time to phone in between more important films.
The director's take reflects a certain moral ambiguity-he sloshes back and forth between presenting Ned and his boys in a favorable light while having to deal with the fact that in the end (at least in this version) he got an awful lot of innocent people killed.
Lots of violence here, some a bit creative-the scenes could have been modeled from a Clint Eastwood western.
There's fine footage of Australia with every new film from there, like "Rabbitproof Fence" and "Japanese Story." This film's set in Victoria-if these movies keep coming I'll tour all the states before too long.
Good for adventure, acting and scenery. Bad for history.
Actors: Heath Ledger, Orlando Bloom, Naomi Watts, Geoffrey Rush
Director: Gregor Jordan
Summary: "Ned Kelly": Up the Long Ladder and Down the Short Rope
With so many talented Australian actors appearing in films set in virtually every country (even the American Wild West, Cate Blanchett in "Missing"), it's a pleasure to find an ensemble of first-rate performers taking a break and filming a potted but entertaining "history" film about their own country.
Ned Kelly began to deviate from the path of the semi-straight and not all that narrow in 1871. By 1875 he dangled from the hangman's noose-he was just 25 and 32,000 Australians who could write their names did just that and petitioned in vain for remission of the death sentence. To some today he's a folk hero. I suspect most Australians couldn't care less about him.
The real Ned Kelly was a criminal and a murderer. He might also have had a touch of the "Billy the Kid" pathology. He probably was loyal, as in the film, to friends and family - he was hardly a Robin Hood and that hardy benefactor of the downtrodden never existed either, at least not in the form Errol Flynn gave him.
Australian filmmakers tend to have a permanent, immovable chip on their shoulders when they do a tale of the travails of their country under English rule (for example, "Breaker Morant" and "Gallipoli"). These anti-colonialist movies almost invariably distort history but also, often, they do so with considerable acting power, an interesting story and engaging scenery. All three are in abundance in "Ned Kelly."
Director Gregor Jordan shapes a young Irishman, Ned Kelly, who lives with his mom, sisters and brothers. He doesn't seem to have pursued any gainful career although he's great with horses, other people's preferably. Almost at the beginning of the film he's clapped into prison for horsestealing, an act made to seem light by the unjustified, brutal beating the arresting officer gives him.
Oh yes, we're in that staple of movies, the poor, proud, oppressed and family-bonded Irish trying to just enjoy life with its liquid pleasures while the English and their Irish minions destroy their little bit of happiness. A loutish and horny policeman goes after Ned sister when he's away and the moron does this in front of the gal's two adult brothers who beat him up. Next Ned's sainted mother is clapped into jail, make that "gaol," on false charges of wounding the lecherous officer.
Ned's response, in this story: take up a life of crime, kill a few police officers, rob some banks, burn mortgage papers of the poor, give an old man back his silver watch so that this Aussie mirror of the James gang won't be seen as common criminals. I take that back-the James brothers never bothered to articulate the facade projected here.
Heath Ledger is a fine Ned Kelly-he believes in family values (even when he's having it off with a local squire's young wife, played with bland understatement by the talented Naomi Watts). The story doesn't really need a love interest but if there has to be one, she's beautiful.
Kelly and his gang, on the run and on the rampage, are hunted by a police superintendent brought in from another colony, Cape Town. Here's Geoffrey Rush in a small and comfortable role that he found time to phone in between more important films.
The director's take reflects a certain moral ambiguity-he sloshes back and forth between presenting Ned and his boys in a favorable light while having to deal with the fact that in the end (at least in this version) he got an awful lot of innocent people killed.
Lots of violence here, some a bit creative-the scenes could have been modeled from a Clint Eastwood western.
There's fine footage of Australia with every new film from there, like "Rabbitproof Fence" and "Japanese Story." This film's set in Victoria-if these movies keep coming I'll tour all the states before too long.
Good for adventure, acting and scenery. Bad for history.