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Heath Ledger is Irish immigrant Ned Kelly looking after his Ma and his brood of brothers (including Orlando Bloom), in rural Australia. Being Irish immingrants however marks him for unfair treatment at the hands of the local police. Who, bizarrely, are also all Irish. Who knew Dublin was a small suburb in Australia?

Ned believes that this treatment is unfair anyway. The fact that he's a surly brawler doesn't seem to register with him as a possible reason for becoming a target for police attention. He also starts an affair with a local nobleman's wife, Julia Cook (Ledger's real life squeeze - lucky bugger- Naomi Watts). However the crux of the film starts with accusations of horse thieving and a drunken police officers unwanted attention on Ned's sister. Ned is innocent as he was with Cook at the time but as she won't provide him with an alibi for fear of controversy, he and his brothers are forced to go on the run. This leads to a nationwide hunt lead by police chief Hare (Geoffrey Rush).

After Gregor Jordan's sometimes good/sometimes excellent direction of the anti-hero Elwood in Buffalo Soldiers you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd take that same dark tone with the legend of Kelly here. Legends like Kelly are full of contradiction - folk-heroes for the working class, but also murdering, bank robbers all the same. It has the raw materials needed for a full-blooded character investigation. Unfortunately he doesn't take the road less-travelled, but takes the simplistic and obvious one, simply making Ned Kelly a misunderstood, basically decent man forced into action and vengeance.

So what you have is the familiar tale of all police being corrupt, bloodthirsty villains, while Kelly and his gang are twinkle-toed Irish leprachauns simply trying to survive. Were Kelly's family mis-treated? Probably yes. But did Kelly suffer heart-rending anguish about taking the lives of policeman as the film trys to show us? I would doubt it. Yes murder is wrong for whatever reason, but sugarcoating the issue by showing Kelly as the only man with a conscience is simply morally wrong. Didn't the policemen perhaps show a conscience or ever think Kelly was mis-treated? Probably, but hey that's not interesting because they're not CRIMINALS! Let's not forget that that's what Kelly and his gang were. Hell, that's why they're immigrants in the first place. It's just another case of Hollywood portraying the Irish as the most put-upon race in existence. In Hollywood, even Irish terrorists are noble, tragic heroes.

And Kelly's gang even rob banks with a bit of blarney and a charming smile. As they hold banks up they crack jokes to the hostages, read poems, probably even dance. Bloom even seduces the bank managers wife within two minutes of holding her up as she can't resist those twinkling eyes of his. It's as if Justin Trousersnake reformed N'Sync to embark on a tour of crime and robbery. But hey let's remember they only took money from the rich folk at the banks. Yeah right. It's this kind of one-sided, gooey-eyed romanticism that really infruriates here. Wouldn't it be nice for a change if films portrayed criminals as...well, criminals?

True, it would be wrong to dismiss Kelly and the gang as bloodthirsty thugs. They probably weren't. But isn't it as equally wrong to portray them as happy-go-lucky heroes? They probably weren't that either. And that's the films problem - no-one will truly know but the film doesn't even try to approach this ambiguity.

Jordan also fails to lose the vagaries of the plot and the simplistic characterisation in style. The outback of Australia feels like it could be anywhere and there's little sense of the period or the harshness of the times. It's too small-scale and looks like a superior made-for-tv drama. The cast struggle manfully to make an impression but are ill-served by the thin script. Ledger is certainly better than Mick Jaggers portrayal in the 70's but is still a long way from leading man material. Watts is underused while Rush just rolls out one of his familiar sneering villain roles that was a lot more fun in 'Pirates of the Carribean'. The rest of the cast just get lost in a sea of silly accents and dodgy beards

The end shootout goes for a tragic dimension and admittedly gets halfway there with the death of innocent by-standers (shot by the police obviously. Kelly and his gang would never shoot an innocent person, not even by accident. Unless they're a policeman) and the fact that it's only at the end when they're screaming and crying for their Ma, that you realise how young Kelly's brothers were. But even that tragedy is hamstrung by the very silly sight of Ledger and co with buckets on their heads and wearing dustbins for armour. Historically accurate maybe...but still silly.

'Ned Kelly' then is just another 'yawn so-so' portrayal on an enigmatic historival figure. Nowhere near truly awful, but a long way from good as well, it's not the lack of atmosphere or silly accents or lock of dramatic power that is the films biggest flaw. It's Jordan's attempt to unravel and explain an enigmatic figure in the most simplistic and patronising way possible. Now THAT'S a crime.

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originally posted: 03/11/04 05:54:20
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