A legend is reborn

The ghost of Mick Jagger's inept Irish accent in Tony Richardson's 1970 film about the armour-plated outlaw is laid to rest soon after the opening credits of this latest version. Gregor Jordan's movie - based on the novel Our Sunshine, by Robert Drewe, which used internal monologues to get inside the head of Ned Kelly and express his sense of grievance and injustice - is a solidly realised and convincing Western.

Like a cross between Jesse James and Robin Hood, Kelly (Heath Ledger) comes across as a decent, if volatile, underprivileged Irish immigrant (supposedly 16 at the start of the film) whose harsh treatment by the local law officers precipitates his life of crime. It is an old story and one worth retelling.

The teenaged Kelly emerges from prison after serving a sentence he didn't deserve and is again wrongly accused when a policeman, who has been making unwelcome advances towards his sister, is beaten up by his brother and friends. In the end, it's his mother who is dragged off to jail.

The injustice of it all leads Ned and his brother Dan (Laurence Kinlan), together with their friends Joe Byrne (Orlando Bloom) and Steve Hart (Phil Barantini), to start robbing banks. Their crimes escalate and they even hold up
an entire town. With a staggering £8,000 bounty on their heads, Kelly and his boys are hotly pursued through the outback by a posse of 100 men, led by Superintendent Hare ( Geoffrey Rush), who considers Kelly's antics to be an affront to his boss, Queen Victoria.

Ledger is more comfortable in the role of Kelly than he has been with other characters recently, and wears his beard with the natural flamboyance of a born leader. The gunplay and horse chases are thoroughly satisfying, filmed with dark urgency by Oliver Stapleton and driven by the sense of time running out for the gang members.

During the robberies, Kelly rails against British injustice to the assembled folk. His haranguing may smack of self-justification but it is part of the fabric of the character: it was partly his gift of the gab that raised him to the status of folk hero. That Kelly and his gang of three became legends in such a short time (their criminal career lasted only two years) is remarkable and illustrates Australia's inherent desire to celebrate its underdog heroes.

As an alternative western, Ned Kelly works well. The wide open spaces of the Australian landscape are put to excellent use, while the rickety wooden towns that are little more than staging posts ruled by uniformed policemen in silly helmets ring true. It's a partial return to western revisionism (though it does not go as far as low-key "dirty" westerns such The Culpepper Cattle Company and Unforgiven), and the authenticity adds to its overall authority.

Jordan keeps his best moment to last, when, having spent the entire movie wondering when they would utilise their famous steel bulletproof armour and helmets, the gang emerge from a building for the final night-time confrontation like medieval knights with sparks shooting from their hands as their revolvers blast through the vigilantes and policemen waiting to mow them down. It's a glorious moment, enshrining the dark, rebellious heroism of the Ned Kelly legend in a memorable screen portrait.

Ned Kelly
Cert: 15