The movie Ned Kelly tells the true story of the folk-hero, who rebels against Australia in name of freedom, justice and vengeance. This causes so much commotion, that even the English queen Victoria meddles in the affaire.

It’s the year 1878 when Ned Kelly, son of an Irish immigrant, gets wrongly blamed for threatening a cop. Together with his best friend Joe Byrne (Orlando Bloom, the sickly pale elf from Lord Of The Rings), brother Dan Kelly (Laurence Kinlan) and nephew Steve Hart (Phil Barantini) he flees into the woods. What follows is a nerve-cracking hunt in which three constables die. The local authorities decide out of revenge to arrest all civilians with an irish background and/or to expropriate them from their land. For Ned and his three companions this is the signal to, provided with self-made armour and helmets, launch a violent battle. They rob a few banks and divide the booty among the indigent part of the population. Like Braveheart, Robin Hood, Ivanhoe and The Daltons have made a pact together.

Mick Jagger
The history of Ned Kelly has been filmed several times since 1906. In 1970 nobody less than Rolling Stone Mick Jagger takes the role of the australian knaves legend. In the current edition the main role is played by Heath Ledger (known from the comparable The Patriot starring Mel Gibson). For his role as Ned Kelly the actor taught himself a juicy Irish accent. Less hilarious than the babble speech of Brad Pitt in Snatch, but way more intelligible! A modest, but not unimportant role is for Naomi Watts (The Ring and Le Divorce). As the lover of Ned she’s responsible for the small bit of romance in the movie. Also there’s a small role for Geoffrey Rush (Ghost-captain in Pirates Of The Caribbean).

Thirst
Ned Kelly is particularly fine filmed, there’s plenty use of dark, spherefull fall colors. We’ve also enjoyed the merry irish music. Pity that only the story isn’t as easy to follow. At a certain moment Ned Kelly slits his horse’s throat to drink the blood. We have no idea why! Later it comes clear to us that the police poisoned all water sources in the wood. Yeah right… In spite of a few small beauty mistakes, the movie is worth seeing. Though animal lovers better leave the movie behind. The death of a circus monkey during the deciding fight is truly very funny (‘the monkey’s hit’), but also a bit cruel…

The Extras
Ned Kelly was nominated 7 times for the australian Acedemy Awards and eventually won 2 (Best direction and Best Costumes). Nonetheless the bonus material is very scanty. There are for example no audio comments. But there is a, almost 13 minutes enduring, documentary Ned Kelly In Popular Culture, in which you get to see clips from the cinematic release in Melbourne. There are also shown fragments of older Ned Kelly-movies, including the 1970-version starring Mick Jagger. Further director Gregor Jordan and actor Heath Ledger get to speak shortly. For the rest, the extra’s exist from 2 short trailers, a photobook and a handful of movie posters.

And than there’s the feature The Real Kelly Gang, with pictures of the real gang members. It’s a pity the DVD doesn’t contain a documentary about the real Ned Kelly. But if you might be interested in the history of this australian folk hero, you should visit www.nedkellysworld.com.