Ned Kelly

Even today the character of Ned Kelly is seen by most Australians as more sinned against than sinning. It's a pity then that director Tony Richardson and male lead Mick Jagger couldn't be afforded the same latitude.

Contrary to some comments in this forum, this film was never a cult hit or even very popular at all in Australia. When I studied film criticism during the 'seventies, "Ned Kelly" was often held up as the prime example of just how bad a movie could be. This view is the orthodox one among Australians of generations old enough to have seen it. The trouble with this orthodoxy is that is simply not true.

Jagger gives a surprisingly strong performance given his physical limitations. The story features no glaring inaccuracies of the Kelly legend and the screenplay is very well structured and paced. Above all, the cinematography is simply superb. Some of the scenes, such as the shoot out at Stringybark Creek are highly arresting.

All right, Waylon Jennings singing Shel Silverstein songs is a little corny and intrusive but that's about my only criticism. I would be surprised if the 2002 version is any better.

This film has always received a thorough trashing, in Australia at least, & having seen it, I believe unfairly. As a genre film it's pretty solid - boy gets out of jail, still gets hassled by The Man, gets pushed back into crime trying to help his dear old momma, & goes out in a blaze of glory (sort of - he was captured & hanged after the glorious showdown).

Unfortunately, the boy happens to be Ned Kelly, Australia's most ambiguous hero. Debating what sort of a man Kelly really was is irrelevant now - the legend is far more important. An Irish renegade standing up to the imperialist forces, or a glorified criminal, blah, blah, blah. He may have been a horse-thief, he may have been a thug, he may have loved fluffy kittens - we'll never know for sure.

This film hardly attempts to get at any sort of historical truth - it's about rebellious youth breaking free from the stuffy establishment, hence the casting of Jagger. He's actually quite good, but his celebrity overshadows his performance. He might have worked, just not playing such a famous Australian icon. That elevates it to a type of ironic blasphemy.

Pity, really - it's not a bad film at all. Well shot, directed & acted, it does convey a sense of being back in the 19th century, & still manages to have that rebellious 60's/70's charm.

A much better (& far more brutal) Australian bushranger film is 'Mad Dog Morgan', starring Dennis Hopper, & his Irish accent is just a bit more convincing than Jagger's.

Spectacular version , being basically a Western in all but locale , dealing with a known and ruthless bandit , stars Mick Jagger playing an unusual role . A film about the legendary outlaw whose story outgrew his life , it is based on the true events of famous 19th-century Outback rebel, an authentic legend which results to be the Australian's most ambiguous outlaw. A man (Mick Jagger) called Ned Kelly and his family are mistreated by Australians guards .He turns to steal horses that had been previously robbed to him . Shortly after , he finds it's impossibie for an Irishman in Queen Victoria's colony to walk the straight and narrow . Later on , there happens a manhunt proceeded by law enforcers , attempting to capture him , it results in merciless chases , violence and mayhem . He gets deeply drawn into crime life and eventually becomes a policemen killer , meanwhile , he falls in love . Kelly forms an Irish band battling the British Empire but the oppressed people called them heroes and are relentlessly pursued by astute , stubborn officials . The manhunt results in death and the eventual capture and execution of Kelly .The Saga of the Stringbark Creek massacre! . You can kill a man but not a legend !. When the law tried to silence him a legend was born !. The British Empire branded them as outlaws !. The oppressed called them heroes !.

The film is an Australian Western made completely by Aussies and Brits packing action , drama , shootouts, a love story and a lot of violence . It's an acceptably solid movie narrating the confrontation between the Irish rebels and the English forces and holds up pretty well too . A peculiar and disjointed film about a desperado roaming outlands of 19th-century Outback , resulting in violent and offbeat consequences. The essential of this picture is the outlaw hunt that results in a great load of gunplay and deaths until a breathtaking final confrontation. This is a period piece financied by Australian and British producers, but it seems to have lacked an empathy for the material, and director giving a lethargic filmmaking . The very contemporary Mick Jagger is miscast as a two-fisted and revenger outlaw , giving a passable acting , being accompanied by nice Australian actors , such as : Clarissa Kaye-Mason , Mark McManus , Bruce Barry and Frank Thring. Ned Kelly (1970) before being adapted in a Australian version 1960 by Sterling and in 2003 also titled Ned Kelly by Gregor Jordan starred by Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush . And in similar style : Mad Morgan (1976) with Dennis Hooper.

The movie benefits tremendously from Gerry Fisher's frequently ravishing cinematography , although is sometimes dark , as film longtime is developed at night and some interior scenarios. It contains a sensitive and rousing musical score with a lot of catching Irish songs .The motion picture was well photographed and competently directed by Tony Richardson who dramatizes accurately the life of this famous outlaw and his henchmen , containing some shortfalls , flaws and gaps . Richardson was a Brit craftsman who made a lot of films in all kinds of genres , getting successes anf flops . Richardson was a good writer and director who married Vanessa Redgrave and Jeanne Moreau , known for The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) , A taste of honey (1961), Tom Jones (1963), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), among others. Rating : 6/10 . The flick will appeal to Mick Jagger fans.

This film has been criticised too harshly, because of Mick Jagger's lack of experience as an actor and it's failure to stick to verifiable facts. But treat it as the cinematic equivalent of a folk ballad and you'll have a good time with it. Just as you wouldn't hire an opera singer to sing a folk song, you don't need a professional actor to play the lead in a rough-and-ready entertainment about a rough-and-ready character. By the time one gets to the speeded up segment that accompanies Waylon Jenning's singing of Shel Silverstein's "Blame it on the Kelly's" it becomes clear this is not a film that is intended as a serious examination of history. Like the song "The Wild Colonial Boy" which Jagger sings in one of the more memorable scenes in the movie, this is popular entertainment to be enjoyed with a few beers. Taken as such it is very enjoyable, with catchy songs, evocative cinematography and Jagger being very much the lovable, charismatic rabble-rouser he was in real-life at the time. And what matters in a folk ballad is not the truth, but the legend.

There have been many attempts to make a film about the famous Ned Kelly story, but none have totally succeeded. This British attempt was undertaken when the Australian film industry was at its lowest ebb, but neither British writer-director nor British pop star-actor Mick Jagger do the story justice.

The pace and tone of the story are both uneven, veering from slow to fast and serious to comic periodically. Personally I found the first half quite dull, though the pace picked up somewhat once the bushranging started, before grinding to an uncertain halt with a confusing climax at Glenrowan.

Similarly it was hard to take Mick Jagger seriously as an outlaw, as he came across as more of a mouthpiece for political statements about freedom and equality which seemed to have more to do with 1960s values than those of 19th Century Australia.

The music was another odd feature, with many US country songs and singers providing a series of outlaw songs to accompany the action, with mixed results.

Despite all these problems, the film does present the Kelly story in a fairly comprehensible way (apart from the ending), and the second half of the film was quite enjoyable. If another lead actor had been chosen this could have been much better.