Written by Shaun Grant and based on the novel by Peter Carey
Directed by Justin Kurzel
Starring George MacKay, Essie Davis and Nicholas Hoult
MPAA rating: R for strong violence throughout, bloody images, pervasive language and sexual content
Running time: 2 hours and 4 minutes

by Fiona Underhill

Australian director Justin Kurzel is best known for his work with Michael Fassbender (Macbeth and Assassin’s Creed), after making his feature-debut with a film about Australia’s most famous serial killings – The Snowtown Murders (2011). Kurzel now returns to reckoning with the uncomfortable corners of Australia’s past as he takes on perhaps the country’s most famous name – the Outlaw Ned Kelly. The author of the novel – Peter Carey – was very much trying to provoke with the word “true” in the title and this is something the filmmakers absolutely lean into. This film is about the mythologizing of a man who tried to take ownership of his own narrative during his life, only to have it spiral out of control. Ned Kelly has controversial legend status in Australia, with some viewing him as a folk hero and others as a violent thug. Many attempts have been made to make biopics about him, but none have really succeeded. Perhaps this one – which acknowledges the fact that it is impossible to make a “true story,” with everyone agreeing on the facts and being happy with the outcome – is the only version that is now possible. The film starts with: “nothing you’re about to see is true.”

The first forty minutes of True History of the Kelly Gang are about Ned’s childhood, with Orlando Schwerdt playing a 13-year-old Ned. Ned is the eldest son of the Irish Ellen (Essie Davis) and John Kelly (Ben Corbett) – who have been transported to Australia as convicts. Sergeant O’Neil (Charlie Hunnam) arrests John for stealing a cow which Ned actually stole and guilt haunts Ned for the rest of his life. Harry Power (Russell Crowe) comes into their lives and Ellen sends Ned away with him, to “make him a man.” Power encourages Ned to kill O’Neil as revenge, Ned shoots him but doesn’t kill him and is taken away to jail. Fast-forward ten years and Ned has transformed into 1917’s George MacKay. He returns home to find his mother shacked up with a young Californian, George King (Marlon Williams) who is a horse rustler, along with Ned’s younger brother Dan (Earl Cave). Dan and his friend Steve (Louis Hewison) have stolen dresses from the local bordello Robertson’s. Ned returns the dresses and there he meets Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), who he falls for and Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult), who will become a thorn in his side.

As well as the casting and acting, the greatest strengths of Kelly Gang are the cinematography, costume design and score. Kurzel proved he had a knack for shooting vast, barren landscapes in Macbeth, frequently framing his actors dwarfed by nature. He does the same with the High Country of Victoria here – bringing us a wintry and even snowy vision of Australia which will surprise most audiences who are not from there. Cinematographer Ari Wegner has had a fascinating few years, shooting upcoming Sundance sensation Zola and British horror In Fabric, as well as the fantastically Gothic Lady Macbeth (2016). The costume design by Alice Babidge is incredible and if there were any justice in the world, it would be Oscar-nominated. The most famous aspect of the costumes are the dresses worn by the Kelly Gang, which are apparently based on fact. As Dan Kelly explains in the film; “it scares the bejesus out of the English, men are most afraid of what they don’t understand.” The way the costumes work in tandem with the environment (especially the outdoor scenes in nature) is especially good. The film opens with Ned’s father John in a red dress, riding a white horse through a desolate and hostile landscape peppered with bare, spiky trees. Much later, there is a scene of the gang and their supporters all in pastel-colored dresses, with black ash on their faces, surrounded by snow and fires, as Ned gives a rousing speech. Like much of the film, this is a scene of contradictions and contrasts – the feminine clothing juxtaposing with the harsh environs and the violent energy coming off the boys. 

The score by Justin Kurzel’s brother Jed is phenomenal and music is hugely important throughout the film. Before shooting began, Kurzel wanted the Kelly Gang to feel like a punk band, so he got the four core members (MacKay, Cave, Jacob Collins-Levy who plays Thomas Curnew and Sean Keenan, who plays Joe Byrne) together. They formed a band called Fleshlight (I strongly advise you not to Google this), wrote a bunch of songs together and performed some gigs, at least one of which featured them wearing dresses. Two of the songs they wrote together – ‘Desperation’ and ‘Everywhere’ feature in the film – the former of which plays over MacKay’s blistering introduction as the adult Ned. Marlon Williams, who plays George King, also wrote songs which he performs in the film, as did Russell Crowe – ‘Harry Power’s Waltz’ features extremely profane lyrics about the local constables. Highlights of Kurzel’s score include the scratchily discordant track ‘Home’ which plays when Ned is reunited with his family after ten years (perhaps reflecting his conflicting emotions) and ‘Riding On’ with its use of softer, haunting and rueful woodwind instruments that come in as O’Neil tells Ned that he’s “not the man your mother wished you were.” 

The performances in Kelly Gang are a huge reason why it works as well as it does. Essie Davis (best known for playing Phryne Fisher) is typically wonderful as Ned’s mother, Nicholas Hoult (who can be hugely variable) makes a great villain (as he did in The Favourite) and Charlie Hunnam finally gets to use his own Geordie accent again, after all these years, which totally transforms his acting ability. Earl Cave (Nick Cave’s son) brings extreme Jack White energy to Dan Kelly, Sean Keenan has a lovely bromance with MacKay’s Ned and Orlando Schwerdt delivers a feisty determination as young Ned. As someone who has recently watched twenty performances from George MacKay for an article, I’m here to tell you that Ned Kelly is unlike anything he has done before. MacKay brings a physicality to this role that he rarely has the chance to display, particularly when he is introduced – at a bareknuckle boxing match. MacKay moves from preening peacock to knuckle-dragging gorilla with ease and he continues to surprise throughout the film, revealing all of Ned’s contradictions, sometimes even within scenes. Without Ned’s signature bushy beard, his youth (the real Kelly died aged 25) is emphasized and MacKay conveys the boy-desperate-to-be-a-man so well, expertly navigating a range of performative confidence and aggression while constantly being plagued by inner doubts and regrets. The one-two punch of 1917 and Kelly Gang surely confirms that after more than 15 years of steady acting work, MacKay is finally having a breakout year. And he deserves to, with these two performances which are extraordinary in completely different ways. 

True History of the Kelly Gang is as chaotic and contradictory as the real man and, more importantly, the legend that he became. The film constantly plays with the notion of the “man being the author of his own history” and examines someone who was starting to be mythologized even before he died. The way the final shoot-out is filmed in a flickering style (it should definitely come with a flashing image warning), as if it is early film footage, demonstrates the artifice at play throughout. The film being narrated by Kelly himself, as he records his story for his unborn child, makes us aware of how attempts to wrestle control of our own biographies are ultimately futile. With Snowtown Murders, Macbeth and now Kelly Gang, Kurzel has established himself as a chronicler of facets of masculinity and men wrestling with their own image/legacy. Macbeth and Kelly Gang also both feature brutal landscapes, stunningly shot and are, without doubt, worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.

Available on demand Friday, April 24th.