TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG – Review

IFC Films will release TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG – On Demand and Digital April 24th.

Review by Stephen Tronicek

t’s a rare and wonderful treat when the mise-en-scene of a particular film becomes so crazed that you feel true terror but also cathartic beauty. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre achieves this, Possession (1981) achieves this, Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth achieves this and now Kurzel’s most recent film True History of the Kelly Gang does. The concoction is two-fold, one part believing and empathizing with characters and one part placing them in an ungodly situation. In order to do that, a filmmaker has to pull out the stops, formalistically and emotionally. Kurzel does. 

Following the true exploits of Ned Kelly, an Australian outlaw played with uncompromising vigor by George MacKay (1917), True History of the Kelly Gang aims to explore a more empathetic version of the outlaw’s tale. Shaped by trauma and colonial terror, Ned is forced into a corner by a villainous English officer (a better than ever Nicholas Hoult). Out of this corner, he explodes violently, becoming a bank robber and amassing a small army of men to spring his bride (Tomasin Mackenzie) and his mother (Essie Davis) from prison. 

The strongest element of True History of the Kelly Gang arises out of how potent the storytelling is. Kurzel has always been very good at taking the macro elements of mythological and historical storytelling and boiling them down into intimate stories without losing any of the gravitas. One only needs to look towards his adaptation of Assassin’s Creed to figure out whether or not this approach always works but in True History, the results are electrifying. It feels at once huge yet always grounded in the moment, buoyed by delicious details and performances. MacKay is an interesting everyman, emanating a scared boyishness behind his crazed conviction, Hoult is downright terrifying and salacious, Essie Davis  (The Babadook and also Kurzel’s wife) crafts a performance of punishing resilience and Russell Crowe shows up briefly in a role that could be logged within his best. All of that is to say nothing of the blistering formalism on display.

Kurzel has been developing a type of arthouse action for a while, at once confusing to read, yet visceral to behold. Again, one only needs to look as far as Assassin’s Creed to see that it doesn’t always work. In True History it springs to life. It plays like The Revenant without all the navel-gazing theatrics, holding onto the immediacy but never sacrificing the brutality. Special attention must be brought to cinematographer Ari Wegner and his group of operators, film editor Nick Fenton, the hard-hitting sound work, and the beautiful score by Jed Kurzel. All of these elements contribute to the weight of what is onscreen. 

All of these elements build to a moment of true terror, that won’t be spoiled, a satisfying climax to say the least. There are little flaws tucked away into the fabric of the film, there’s not much place for the women characters other than Davis’s mother character and it maybe runs a little long, but these pale in comparison to the uncompromising power on display. If you’re in the mood for a nasty tale, one that won’t let you down, you could do a lot worse than True History of the Kelly Gang. 

3.5 out of 4 stars