Ned Kelly
The notion or concept of the notorious outlaw as being some sort of a celebrated “hero” is one as old as the legend of Robin Hood himself. But if one is to take that same notion of looking at said outlaw and then going so far as to think of him as being a “rock star”, then you’d probably get this 1970 effort from one hit wonder director Tony Richardson (Tom Jones) about the title character, a real life 19th century rebel bandit from Australia whose name and reputation still draws hushed tones in that country to this very day, a guy who rounded up his brothers and drinking buddies in order to take on the law enforcement authorities representing the Commonwealth Of The British Crown with the irony being that many still look at it even today as being a justified, righteous stand off with the forces of tyranny. And as far as the “rock star” angle is concerned, who better to cast in the title role circa 1970 than the one and only Mick Jagger? And moreso, what do we say about the appearance to our eyes that Jagger actually seemed to take this role quite seriously, not just coasting along on his charisma but actually attempting to give a real acting performance all the way down to growing out a beard just like his real life counterpart did? Whether Jagger was truly sincere at that time of doing the best job possible is up for debate, but what is known is that The Rolling Stones had to turn down a spot at Woodstock partly because Mick was unavailable and on location in Australia filming this movie at that time. What is also known is that when the film was finally released and could only manage poor reviews and a lackluster box office mostly due to several poor artistic decisions by director Richardson, Jagger would publicly disown the film and describe it as being “a pile of shit” possibly because of the fact that the conviction he tried to bring to the whole thing was mitigated by other factors and thus as a result it didn’t exactly set the cinematic world on fire upon release. The film has a murky, hazy look to it that many would opine made it look “ugly”, but after all this WAS rural Australia in the 19th century. The film opens with a black and white prologue titled “The End”, showing Jagger being brought to the gallows and hanged that was filmed in the same location where the real life Kelly had met the same end. We then jump to “The Beginning” complete with color photography as Jagger’s Ned returns home after having just served a stint in prison, being greeted by his many sisters as well as his brothers and his mother’s new, American husband. His mother greets him too, cautiously at first, and then with open arms as Ned (as the eldest son) more or less assumes control of the farm. Eventually, things start turning up a certain way as they find several of their horses and livestock being stolen and winding up in the possession of the richest man in the district with the authorities appearing to be absolutely bewildered after The Kellys beseech them to do something about it. Eventually turnabout becomes fair play as The Kelly Brothers start ripping off horses and livestock of their own, leading the authorities to not only label them criminals, but to actually engage in unfair entrapment practices such as having an Irish cop (convincing The Kellys that he is their friend because they too are Irish immigrants to Australia) slip something into Ned’s beer that results in him waking up in jail having been told by the turncoat cop that he had been acting out of control. Things only escalate from there as The Chief Of Police actually notifies his men that all minor, petty crimes going forward will hereby be blamed on The Kellys, a development which sees Ned’s American stepdad turn tail and run back to America where he claims that this kind of shit does not happen there and eventually Ned’s mother is brought in on trumped up charges and locked away for three years. As Ned and his brothers move on up to bank robbing (and killing cops in self defense during an ambush) all while dressed in police uniforms and charming the eyewitnesses, their public support continues to grow, leading to the unprecedented move of the police arresting (or rather unlawfully detaining) as many of their supporters as they could possibly round up and holding them without trial or bail. All of this was certainly a wild and wooly period in the history of Australia, if not an outright fascist one where it is even said at one point by an authority figure that a society that has failed to come together and be as closeknit as they should be is one that would embrace outlaws as being heroes, but Kelly’s historical appeal amongst the Australian people even today is that he was truly the last of the oldschool outlaws anywhere worldwide (although Billy The Kid was right around the same time in America), the last line of defense to stand up to the rich people and the bankers (one bank robbery even shows them burning deeds and mortgages) and nothing at all like the later kingpin criminals such as Capone and Dillinger who were truly despotic human beings through and through. The mistakes that Richardson makes here as a director (and which hurts Jagger’s impact on the film) is an abundance of overediting that throws the viewer far too quickly into the next scenario of the story and then there’s the very big problem on hand as it relates to the music. Although Jagger does get to sing once onscreen (in character), for some reason the decision was made to give the primary soundtrack performances to one Waylon Jennings, a giant in the field of American country music but also somebody who is completely unsuitable for doing the soundtrack of this Australian set movie starring a British rock n roll legend. What’s even worse (besides the repetitive nature of the songs), Jennings singing over much of the action also turns out to be a literal narration of what we’re watching occur (the most painful example being a gunfight where Jennings is singing about a character being killed WHILE we literally watch him get killed). It’s rare when we can actually talk about how one film’s particular soundtrack almost completely ruins the experience, but the film really does manage to be at its most evocative whenever Jennings is NOT being heard blubbering away over the action or even worse, getting cute and managing to slip in some spoken word lyrics without any music whatsoever (this is NOT Dukes Of Hazzard). A far cry from actual legendary Western soundtracks such as Young Guns 2 or Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid as this film shows its inappropriate and outright annoying tendency to state (or sing) the obvious when there’s no real need to as Jagger is trying really hard here with the mostly unglamorous set design and production values to play a character fighting for his life and survival in a rather rustic setting. The film of course does include the (true) account of Kelly’s capture as he memorably suits up in his own self made suit of armor which also happens to be bulletproof, going it alone against hundreds of cops while absorbing countless bullets before going down under the weight of their impacts to then be taken alive and held for trial. Funny enough, this might still remain to this day the best cinematic adaptation of the Kelly story even as another version was produced in Australia in 1980 (with several of the cast members here also appearing in that version) and a Heath Ledger / Orlando Bloom effort would come along in 2003 albeit with even less of a critical reception than this one would receive. Whether the story will ever be done right (again keeping in mind that the popularity of the Ned Kelly name in Australia and the country’s fascination with him is probably even moreso than that of William Bonney or Jesse James in America) is a question that may not be answered in our lifetime, but the failure here is certainly not one that rests on Mick Jagger’s shoulders as just his very willingness to sign on brought an aura to the character that very few could muster even as that same failure would drive him away from screen acting until his triumphant return in 1992’s Freejack. The other actors here (with the exception of Aussie character acting legend Frank Thring as the hanging judge) are mostly little known and nondescript types who more than allow Jagger to command the screen here, something he does do successfully until whenever it is that the last person who should have done the soundtrack on a Mick Jagger movie starts singing some horribly out of place American country music…
5/10