Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Ned Kelly Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson April 21, 2020

I was recently pleasantly enlightened by the fact that the Irish-Australian folk hero Ned Kelly has a rich and deep history in cinema and pop culture. In a vintage featurette on this Shout Select disc, clips are shown from the silent short film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), another silent When the Kellys Were Out (1922), The Glenrowan Affair (1951), and Tony Richardson's 1970 cult film Ned Kelly (with Mick Jagger in the titular role). Since the Seventies, there hadn't been any serious dramatic features made about the beloved outlaw (excluding Yahoo Serious's satire Reckless Kelly (1991), which co-stars Hugo Weaving). Enter Aussie director Gregor Jordan (Buffalo Soldiers) and screenwriter John Michael McDonagh, who adapted novelist Robert Drewe 1991 book, Our Sunshine. The casting of Heath Ledger in the title role and Orlando Bloom as his good friend Joe Byrne was catered to the 18 to 25-year-old demographic. Unfortunately, Focus Features didn't launch much of an aggressive marketing campaign and it subsequently fizzled at the US box office. Performances by the leads and supporting players are underrated in spite of some faults in the subplots McDonagh invented in his script.

The Jordan/McDonagh film adaptation Ned Kelly (2003) is set in southeastern Australia (principally Victoria) over an eight-year span during the 1870s when a wave of Irish immigrants (including the Kelly clan) had arrived. They live in penurious conditions and have been undercut by a colonial system transposed from Britain to Victoria that have left them repressed and with little money. Ned Kelly (Heath Ledger) always seems to have a knack for trouble although he feels he acts honorably. Ned is accused by a Victorian police officer of stealing a beautiful white horse so the two get in a skirmish. He has to serve three years in jail but after release, injustices continue for his family. In a saloon, Constable Fitzpatrick (Kirt Paramore) flirts with Ned's sister Kate (Keny Condon) whose romantic inclinations are not reciprocated. Fitzpatrick trespasses on the Kelly land and they have to darn-near drive him away with force.

Fitzpatrick falsely claims that Ned tried to kill him with a firearm. Here's where the trouble really begins for Ned and the film. Ned is smitten with Julia Cook (Naomi Watts), a genteel Englishwoman and wife of a landowner. While Fitzpatrick pesters his family, Ned is with Julia on her farm. The Watts character could give Ned the alibi he needs to get off attempted murder. Instead, the script argues that Julia could risk and ruin everything if she stands up for Ned. But the audience never really sees much of her husband and while he supports the Victorian police, Julia wouldn't have to admit that she had an affair with Ned (and the film isn't that clear if they were actually intimate). Watts does all that she can with the bit part that was written for her. But because Ned remains an even-more wanted fugitive, the police also put part of the blame on his his mother (Kris McQuade) for the altercation with Fitzpatrick.

Best of friends.

Needing additional cavalry aid to battle the Kelly Gang, the police summon British Superintendent Francis Hare (Geoffrey Rush) and a phalanx of soldiers. Rush acts very stoic but since he enters almost midway through the picture, his part is also underwritten. A strength of the screenplay, however, is how he gains respect and admiration for Ned's fighting spirit.

The best scenes in the movie are the battle scenes between the Kelly Gang and the Aussie/Brit police forces. Anchoring Ned in battle are his younger brother Dan (Lau­rence Kinlan) and his close comrades, Joe Byrne (Orlando Bloom) and Steve Hart (Philip Barantini). It's particularly memorable when they face off with Hare's cavalry on June 27, 1880 at the Glenrowan Inn. It's raining hard and very dark. The Kelly Gang have a circus troupe they've coerced to join them but are still badly outnumbered. It's neat how the film shows Ned and his brothers in arms wearing full-body boilerplate armor when they come out of the tavern to fight. Fans of the beloved Ledger may remember him well in steel armor in A Knight's Tale (2001) but they'll gain a greater appreciation of him take on nearly a full cavalry on his own while he slumbers along with those heavy steel plates protecting his chest and most of his legs. Overall, Ned Kelly attempts to pack in too many characters and subplots but makes up slack thanks to its scale and ambition.

Ned Kelly Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select has given Ned Kelly (2003) its North American debut on Blu-ray (#71 in the boutique label's series) on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Gregor Jordan's Outback Western appears in its original exhibition ratio of approximately 2.35:1. I reckon that this is the same HD master utilized for Universal's BD editions in Australia and the UK. The DI may also derive from the same source which appeared on Focus Features' 2003 DVD. The SD had a number of scenes with edge enhancement and this transfer also sports some EE but not to the same degree. I fretted that aliasing and shimmering would also be problematic but after examining this transfer twice, this thankfully isn't the case. There does appear to be some over-sharpening on the traced outlines of human figures and objects, though. The print looks clean without discernible source flaws. This is largely a dark-looking film dominated by brown, gray, and navy blue hues. The cascade of white light shining through the clouds is an exception. I learned from the venerable critic Philip French that cinematographer Oliver Stapleton based his compositions off Tom Roberts and other nineteenth century Australian painters from the impressionist movement. Shout has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 34000 kbps.

A dozen chapter breaks accompany the 110-minute feature.

Ned Kelly Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout Select supplies the original theatrical's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (2816 kbps, 24-bit) and a downsampled DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1764 kbps, 24-bit). It helped to have the optional English SDH to comprehend the 19th-century Australian dialect, which contains some words I'm unfamiliar with. The 5.1 track is nicely balanced across the speaker spectrum. When the horses gallantly ride in stride and style with one other, the viewer can hear their hooves crisply hitting the ground on the rear channels. Composer Klaus Badelt is from the Hans Zimmer school of scoring and while he doesn't really employ electronics here like the German maestro, the soulful female vocals that accompany young Ned and his boyhood friend in the ocean recall the work of Zimmer's collaborator on Gladiator (2000), Lisa Gerrard. It also sounds like the vocalizing harmonies Gerrard used to great effect in Whale Rider (2002). Badelt's string-laden cues are alternately warm and somber. The Irish flutes make up a great secondary theme for the Kelly family. I'm pleased with how his music sounds along the front and back channels on the uncompressed 5.1 mix.

Note that Ned Kelly also features some dialogue in either Cantonese and Mandarin, which are subtitled in English. See screen capture #s 19 and 20. These captions can't be switched off.

Ned Kelly Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Ned Kelly – Cultural Icon Featurette (13:37, 480i) - this recycled featurette from the Universal DVDs contains excerpts from the films I denoted in the opening paragraph of this review. Director Gregor Jordan and author Robert Drewe are interviewed. In English, not subtitled.

• Trailers (2:59, 480i) - the teaser trailer (0:56 secs) is displayed in 1.78:1 anamorphic while the original theatrical trailer (2:03) is also in widescreen (but not OAR). The latter has noticeably better color and PQ.

• Still Gallery (6:12, 1080i) - a silde show consisting of eighty-two on-location photographs and several publicity snapshots of the stars that were considered for the movie's poster campaign. The latter images may be the same as what was on the Universal DVDs, although I don't have a copy handy.

• TV Spot (0:17, 480i) - a full-frame TV spot that Focus Features had networks air to promote Ned Kelly.

Ned Kelly Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ned Kelly (2003) was not reviewed widely by critics nor seen by the masses upon its short theatrical run. I hope that Shout Select's decent (though by no means exceptional) package will introduce new fans to this underrated Outback Western. Fans of Ledger should undoubtedly cherish it. Shout's transfer has some edge enhancement and sharpening issues but presents a reasonably clear image. I wish that Ned Kelly – Cultural Icon had been an hour or longer. Shout didn't record any new interviews but carries over most of Universal's ancillary extras. This is a good release to pick up now just as Justin Kurzel's new feature True History of the Kelly Gang is being released by IFC Films.