September 09, 2004
Ned Kelly
Directed by Gregor JordanHeath Ledger .... Ned Kelly
Orlando Bloom .... Joe Byrne
Geoffrey Rush .... Francis Hare
Naomi Watts .... Julia Cook
Joel Edgerton .... Aaron Sherritt
Laurence Kinlan .... Dan Kelly
Phil Barantini .... Steve Hart
An account of Australia's most famous Bushranger, Ned Kelly.
This movie was filmed and released overseas about a year before it made it to the U.S. The U.S. released it as an art house movie, which meant that the average American wasn't going to see it at the local AMC. It did play at a very cool movie theatre in Hollywood, but I never made it while it was in the theatre those 2 days (I exaggerate, it was probably 3 days). [Diety of choice] bless that Netflix carries all kinds of foreign films so I was able to view this film without paying $20 (the theatre it was in was a really chi-chi kind of theatre).
And thank [diety of choice] for the fast forward button. As much as I love looking at sweeping landscapes of the Australian countryside, 5 minutes of a camera lingering on a tree branch up close and personal doesn't work for me. Plus, the fast forward button worked wonders when the acting of 2 of the characters/actors in the same scene **coughNaomiandHeathcough** got too stilted and boring.
The story and plot itself wasn't all that bad. It's not easy to tell the story of a cultural icon who is both loved and reviled equally by a nation (although Ned Kelly is probably revered more than he is reviled). It's also hard to be very historically accurate when the story is more than 100 years old and eyewitness accounts weren't very accurate. Unfortunately, this leaves some of the characters flat and not fleshed out.
Overall, I'd say it's worth a rental.
I give it 2 Halos (for the cinematography and acting of most of the actors) and 3 Pitchforks (for the lack of fleshed out characters and long boring montages).
Posted by xinh at September 9, 2004 02:38 AM