The Legend of Ben Hall

growing up in Ben Hall country really made this movie something special to me . As a child spending days fishing the Dog and Duck lake . Searching for old relics at the site of the Inn .Feeling the spirit of those men while sitting under some aged red river gums knowing those gums would have sheltered the bush rangers .Also having an understanding of the distances they traveled all comes to life as i watched BEN HALL. ON a recent visit to Forbes i was fortunate to meet the cast of Bushrangers it was very brief but great to chat about how they felt portraying the gang .On occasions growing up there i had visited where Hall was shot and Gilbert .As well as there graves .I give full credit to all who made this come to life

Dreadful. Sceanery is nice though. Acting was appalling. The movie moved between comic, drama and utter silliness. I like Australian movies but this was a turkey. Costumes okay, script terrible. Actors had really nice teeth...... which is quite odd for the time period. Beards looked realistic, all I could think about was that least a few 'hipsters' were earning a few bucks!

This is a true story.

In Australia 1864, Ben Hall (Jack Martin) wants to give up being a Bush-ranger (A bandit), but is convinced by his friend John Gilbert – aka Happy Jack – (Jamie Coffa) to give it one more go to make enough money to go to the United States. John Dunn (William Lee) joins them and together they rob mostly travelers. Ben Hall has unfinished business with his wife Biddy (Joanne Dobbin) who left him and he wants to take his son Henry (Zane Ciarma) away from her. The government is in the process of passing The Felons Apprehension Act which would make Ben, Happy Jack and Dunn OUTLAWS and could be shot on sight by any citizen.

This movie is about the last 9-months of Ben Hall's life. Before that he and his gang robbed at will and then Ben's gang was disbanded and he led a quiet life until John Gilbert came after him to continue the life of crime.

This is a very good western, and some may compare him to Jesse James although all we saw was Ben, Happy Jack and Dunn only robbing travelers and not trains and banks as Jesse James did. Later we did see an attempt to rob a mail coach with a lot of money, but it was not successful. Ben Hall was known all throughout Australia and was known to never have killed a man.

The cinematography was stunning, the dialogues were spot on, the acting by all was very good, and the music was low key, but okay. The shooting scenes were carefully done and were impressive. The movie may be a little too long, but very engaging.

Ben Hall played by Jack Martin seems to have been a reasonable man who wanted no part of killing. He even allowed a lady he was robbing to keep a necklace she wanted badly. Jamie Coffa as John Gilbert aka Happy Jack was a bit of a clown and a loose cannon sometimes. William Lee as John Dunn was simply a good follower and loyal to Ben Hall.

You keep asking what happened to Ben Hall at the end. Ben Hall was betrayed by his good friend Mick Coneley played by Adam Willson and was ambushed by the police Mick's wife Mary (Erica Field) always had a thing for Ben.

At the end of the movie there are statements what happened to all. (7/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: Yes. Language: Some F-bombs, but not many,.

The film tries to celebrate this Aussie villain by casting a charismatic demeanor to play Hall in contrast to the personality give to Happy Jack, who was portrayed as a borderline fairy with Napoleon syndrome. The film is a little dry as there was little direction as to what drives the main character after giving up on retribution pretty early on in the film. In short the film had fillers scenes that drove up the run time. In all, this is a period drama with a (true to) life lesson that to every man's downfall is a woman. The cause for the fracture between trusted friends was over a woman. 6 on a ten scale because I can't pull for villain main characters and the movie was too long. Higher than avg due to good acting performances.

A better film than it's more famous Hollywood-produced cousin "Ned Kelly", and starting life as a crowd-funded short film, Jack Martin plays the titular anti-hero Ben Hall, who terrorised all comers in my home state of NSW, particularly around Jugiong and Forbes in the 1860's. The scenery is spectacular, even though Victorian locations (shock, horror!) stand in for NSW, and used sets from another of my all-time favourites, The Man from Snowy River to create that Australian countryside feel.

By all accounts, the film is about as historically accurate as one can be, with some of the dialogue coming from newspaper articles and eyewitness accounts. Impressive attention to detail from the filmmakers.

Bushrangers were a big part of Australian history - nice to see a homegrown film about someone other than old Ned. Sadly, without the backing of a Hollywood studio, few of my countrymen will see it.