True History of the Kelly Gang's reviews
Media reviews
The Guardian
"Justin Kurzel delivers a fierce counterpoint to the Ned Kelly legend with this starkly violent story of a damaged criminal...It is a very gruelling spectacle, often brilliant, sometimes slightly redundant and perhaps not able to maintain the storytelling rush of its first act...To watch it, you have to brace for impact".
Roger Ebert
"'True History' is a somewhat daring approach to the biopic, a film that more charts the influences on Kelly than the actual deeds that made him famous. While that angle makes it thematically interesting, and there are strong performances in the ensemble, Mackay?s unconvincing in the crucial role, and the whole thing doesn?t feel like it adds to much as the promise to examine a legend through the world around him doesn?t pay off".
Variety
"Kurzel?s roughhousing, ripely acted interpretation does full justice to the book?s rugged dirt-poetry vernacular and rich biographical particulars, while staging Kelly?s criminal rise and fall as a vision all its own: a wildly gyrating sensory assault of blood, velvet and strobe lights".
The Hollywood Reporter
"You can practically smell the gunpowder and taste the blood...this is an electrifyingly original retelling of a tale carved out of Australian myth".
Collider
"'True History' drags on by failing to provide any insight to Kelly?s story nor does it impress why his legend has persisted for over a hundred years...'True History of the Kelly Gang' didn?t need to be a completely accurate account of Ned Kelly?s life. It just needed to be compelling, and it fails".
Festival Internacional de Cine de Lanzarote