Hey folks, Harry here... Still scratching your head and wondering why Heath Ledger is a star? Yeah, me too. Check out Nate's review of Ned Kelly... there are spoilers...
Hi Harry, I just thought I'd chime in with a view of Ned Kelly. If you post this, call me Nate, since that is my name.
It’s time to talk Ned Kelly. There are some minor spoilers in here. But if you don’t know the story, you should dammit.
Now, this week Heath Ledger really shot himself in the foot with me, he came out on national television and called our prime minister, (yes that’s Australia), a coward. Now, I’m not a militant, or a peace activist, but I just think it’s wrong to go around calling the leader of your nation a coward. Heath is a person who other people will listen to, and he has a responsibility to not fly off the handle like that, I would like to see him try to face the decisions that the free world’s leaders have had to face of late.
Now, this was the baggage I was carrying into this film, I’m not even going to mention the phrase ‘we sacrificed a little historical accuracy to make a better story’, oh damn, I just mentioned it. I know it’s the trend, but there’s a difference between inserting fake people into real events, al la the patriot, and fabricating stories that are like the real thing, but just a little off. I feared a U-571 level of historical buffoonery, and blissfully, I didn’t get it.
I just realised that some people reading this, (assuming it gets read, processed and put on any web pages that is), might not know the story of Ned Kelly, or at the very least a basic idea of what happened and why. So here goes. Edward Kelly, son of an Irishman transported toAustraliafor the crime of stealing a sheep. (I bet if the English realised just how nice living in this country would become, they would have left all the criminals behind and come down here. I say tough luck. I’m descended from a criminal too, and I getAustralia). Now, Edward Kelly, Ned to his friends, is sent to prison for stealing a horse. The thing is, Victorian Police, (then and now – shhhh), are a tad over exuberant in executing their duties. Instead of giving poor Ned a chance to explain why he has a stolen horse in his possession, they belt the snot out of him.
Two years later, Ned is out of prison, but his trouble with the law is far from over. His family is harassed constantly, their crime being of course that they are Irish. And it doesn’t’ take much trouble to escalate the whole situation, turn Ned from someone who only dreamed of getting his life back together and protecting his family, into a copper killing bushranger.
Ned of course doesn’t steal money for himself; he distributes it much like Robin of Loxley. And this sort of behaviour really pisses off the police.
The acting talent assembled for this film is quite extraordinary. Heath Ledger, despite his questionable political behaviour lately shows himself to be an actor of skill. His transformation, everything from carefree youth to amour plated murderer is astounding. Of course Geoffrey Rush as superintendent Hare, he’s the villain of the piece. I can’t really call him a villain, he is after all an officer of the law, setting out to capture criminals and right wrongs and such, but the film wants you to sympathise with the Kelly gang, and so even if you don’t want to you will. They are a likeable group, Joe Byrne, Orlando Bloom, he’s a ladies’ man, a rogue, and I liked him instantly.
There is also Joel Edgerton as Aaron Sherrit, American audiences will recognise (or maybe not, I didn’t at first) him as the young Owen Lars. He escapes being seen as a bad actor by avoiding lines like ‘this is my girlfriend Beru.’ Jesus that was a bad line. Is it me or had George Lucas lost his ability to coax performance out of his actors?
I’ll stop that, I’m not talking about star wars dammit.
Now, as fictional characters go, Julia Cook, played by the lovely Naomi Watts, is placed beautifully into the world. There’s no evidence that she existed, but there’s also no way to say outright that someone like her didn’t. She’s Ned’s love interest, and her commitment to her family’s honour plays a big part in Ned’s downfall. Typical Women, even back in those days you couldn’t trust them. (At this point the editor would like to deny any affiliation with the author of this piece).
As places for filming go, it must have been easy to find empty bushland, since most ofAustralia’s bush looks exactly as it would have 130 years ago, or even 230 years ago, but the construction of the sets is another thing entirely. I’ll venture a guess and say that some of these places inVictoria’s highlands still have the feel of the 19th century, thus making me less inclined to go there. But the construction of the houses and barns and banks is dead on. It’s clear a lot of care went into this film’s production, as it should with a subject so important to so many Australians.
I look at American films, and I wonder where all the money goes. Ned Kelly comes in at $34million, Australian dollars (for those wanting conversion toUScurrency, $34million Australian is about 34 cents US).
I would have thought that a crucial factor in this film would be the music, but honestly, I didn’t notice it that much. There aren’t really heavy themes throughout it, it was definitely there, but it’s not something I would go out and find the soundtrack.
For those of you who know the story, you’ll be expecting a certain line of dialogue at the end of the film, and though it doesn’t come in the way I expected, it is there, and it does resonate. As I’m sure Ned meant it to when he said it. (I may be wrong, he could have just been mouthing off).
Now, to end this lengthy review, (I know, not lengthy like some things I write, but lengthy considering), I’ll say this. If you go in thinking of Ned Kelly as nothing but a common criminal, you’ll be surprised, he was most uncommon. And well loved. Not loved by the right people though, and that was ever his problem.
