'Outlaw Ned Kelly lived only 25 years, but it was enough to write his story into Australian legend. The subject of countless books, songs, and other lore, he has become a near-mythical figure in the mould of Jesse James or even Robin Hood. Adapting the Booker Prize–winning novel by Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang stars George MacKay, Russell Crowe, Nicholas Hoult, Essie Davis, and Charlie Hunnam in a gloriously fictionalized tale of a true-life renegade.
'Kelly (MacKay) grows up in an already rebellious Irish immigrant family, regularly bristling against the outback justice imposed by local police. Over time, he falls under the influence of Harry Power (Crowe), a true bush-ranger with little regard for colonial authority over the wild territory where he operates. Each encounter with the law pushes Kelly further and further into a dedicated life of crime. Soon enough, he's gathered a gang around him to help with the horse thieving and shootouts, and many Australian settlers are applauding his exploits. It all builds to an epic final showdown.'
Source: Toronto International Film Festival.
'The bushranger Ned Kelly, whose gang evaded the police along the border of New South Wales and Victoria between 1878 and 1880, has been interpreted and reinterpreted. Each configuration draws on history and myth to intervene in Australian political life, from colonial stage productions that used his story to critique institutional injustice to the use of his iconography to embody Australian culture at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony. Following a limited theatrical release, Justin Kurzel’s iteration of the legend, True History of the Kelly Gang, reached the streaming platform Stan on Australia Day 2020. This choice of release date evidently sought to capitalise on the national significance of the film’s subject, a decision that sits uneasily with the film’s unease with Kelly both as a national legend and as a figure of Australian history.' (Introduction)
'So opens Ned Kelly’s personal journal, addressed to his future daughter. The irony of this heartfelt promise, of course, is that Kelly never kept a journal. Even his unborn child and her mother are inventions of Peter Carey, author of the much-acclaimed True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). The ‘truth’ in the title of his work, and now in the new adaptation directed by Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel – Snowtown (2011), Macbeth (2015) – is a deliberate provocation. It dares the reader (or in this case, the viewer) to take umbrage with any of the fanciful details contained therein.'
'History, gender and steel mouldboards are all enthusiastically bent in Australian director Justin Kurzel's blustering, scattershot adaptation of Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which tracks the life of the nation's most mythologised outlaw from youth to the noose.' (Publication summary)
'Justin Kurzel’s latest film, True History of the Kelly Gang, marks the tenth screen version of the 1878-1880 Ned Kelly outbreak. It began in 1906 with Charles Tait’s The Story of the Kelly Gang.' (Introduction)
'History, gender and steel mouldboards are all enthusiastically bent in Australian director Justin Kurzel's blustering, scattershot adaptation of Peter Carey's Booker Prize-winning novel True History of the Kelly Gang, which tracks the life of the nation's most mythologised outlaw from youth to the noose.' (Publication summary)
'So opens Ned Kelly’s personal journal, addressed to his future daughter. The irony of this heartfelt promise, of course, is that Kelly never kept a journal. Even his unborn child and her mother are inventions of Peter Carey, author of the much-acclaimed True History of the Kelly Gang (2000). The ‘truth’ in the title of his work, and now in the new adaptation directed by Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel – Snowtown (2011), Macbeth (2015) – is a deliberate provocation. It dares the reader (or in this case, the viewer) to take umbrage with any of the fanciful details contained therein.'
'The bushranger Ned Kelly, whose gang evaded the police along the border of New South Wales and Victoria between 1878 and 1880, has been interpreted and reinterpreted. Each configuration draws on history and myth to intervene in Australian political life, from colonial stage productions that used his story to critique institutional injustice to the use of his iconography to embody Australian culture at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony. Following a limited theatrical release, Justin Kurzel’s iteration of the legend, True History of the Kelly Gang, reached the streaming platform Stan on Australia Day 2020. This choice of release date evidently sought to capitalise on the national significance of the film’s subject, a decision that sits uneasily with the film’s unease with Kelly both as a national legend and as a figure of Australian history.' (Introduction)
'With Justin Kurzel’s new movie in the works, will Australia’s favourite villain finally get the film treatment he deserves?'
