True History of the Kelly Gang

The promoters of this film have decided to go with "limited release" due to poor audience reaction. Frankly after seeing this in Turin I have to agree. Of the ten or so film so films based on Ned Kelly this has to be the most ambitious -- and the least well actualized. In the end it is a disjointed jumble, with a couple of well played roles -- but overall, incoherent and pointless. Dressing Ned up as a woman may seem brave, but really it just comes off as a put on. I am not put off by it, but one has to ask: what is the point?

Takes a classic bit of Aussie history/fable and writes a new version with some similarities. Entertaining enough and rather poetic. Shot well, but quite up and down in terms of performances, altogether okay. If you're looking for a Hollywood blockbuster version of Ned Kelly's story, this isn't it! Likely to frustrate the hell out of anyone that reveres Ned Kelly and the story as told, which greatly amuses me and adds to this movie's charm. Overall quite good.

If they had drawn out the first half, with Ned Kelly as a kid hanging out with Russell Crowe, then you've got a pretty good movie on your hands. I really like what I've seen of George MacKay so far, so I was excited for the second half that covers Kelly as an adult, but rarely have I seen a movie go so far off the rails. Forget that it's historical fantasy. What starts off as a pretty good movie just suddenly becomes unnecessarily hard to follow, pretentiously artsy, surreal, silly, and absurd. Scenes that contain what should be tragic are instead farcical and unintentionally funny, which is all the more bizarre being that the first thirty minutes are so are strong. Mostly I'm irritated that it was such a bait and switch, because had the beginning been as weak as the rest of the movie I wouldn't have gotten invested enough to needlessly see it through to the end.

I went in with excited expectation, as a fan of this genre and having enjoyed Peter Carey's book despite it's departure into fiction ... wow, disappointed... barely a resemblance to the book and I'm wondering why they bothered using the Kelly names and basic timeline ... would have been better as complete fiction ..

Surprised by the scathing reviews here. I really enjoyed this film. Great action, great script and dialogue and incredible cinematography... this film felt like a dystopian take on Aussie history turned folklore. This is not a biopic and not traditional in any sense. If you can leave your bias at the door you'll enjoy yourself