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THE MOVIE
As much as I hate to admit it, my Australian history is not really up to scratch, I obviously know the whole Ned Kelly story, but like probably a large proportion of Australian citizens I do not really know the exact full story. Due to this, Ned Kelly is definitely a dramatic and entertaining film, but I am sure that if I was more aware of the whole Ned Kelly history and background I would be picking historically incorrect portions of this re-telling of the famous Ned Kelly.
The film starts out with Ned (Heath Ledger) as a working class Irishman trying to make his way in country Victoria in the 1870/1880's. His family is not the most law abiding citizens in the land, but sure, they are making a go of it and trying to do the right thing (and make a mostly honest living). Just as things seem to be going good for the Kelly's, Constable Fitzpatrick (Kiri Paramore) starts showing an unwanted interest in Kate Kelly (Kerry Condon), and causing problems in general for the Kelly’s. In a drunken state Fitzpatrick pays a visit at night to harass the Kelly's, which ultimately ends up with the Kelly boys (minus Ned who is off with another woman) chasing Fitzpatrick away with a slight bit of violence. Unfortunately the constable does not take too nicely to rejection and humiliation, coming back with the long arm of the law they arrest some of the family and accusing Ned of shooting him.
This is the start of what is really a fairly tragic story decline. Ned, his brother Dan (Laurence Kinlan) and a couple friends (Orlando Bloom and Phil Barantini) are soon wanted outlaws, with a large bounty on their head, and a standing order from the government and Queen of England that they can be killed on sight, no questions asked. Despite this, what becomes known as the Kelly Gang play a sort of Robin Hood rob from the rich and helping the poor role, helping out anyone they can.
This infuriates the Victorian Police, and with the help of a traitorous friend of the Kelly gang, soon there is a standoff of giant proportions, with the Kelly gang in their world famous armour (which for some reason we never find out how they made it or where they got it from) taking on a large proportion of the Victorian Police Force led by Superintendant Hare (Geoffrey Rush).
THE TRANSFER
Video:
Ned Kelly gets a nice theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16:9 enhanced. The video quality here is excellent, doing the exceptional cinematography justice. The film is very dark in parts, with lots of shades of grey present. A large amount of the film has the Kelly gang in hiding and moving in the shadows, this could have caused a few problems with the image, but luckily a great job has been done on the shadows and black levels for us, giving an excellent image even during the regular night scenes.
The rest of the footage is also of very high quality, with no real problems. We do encounter a few film artefacts here and there, but these can be easily overlooked simply due to the nature and overall look of the film.
Audio:
This is one film that will definitely make use of your subwoofer. With a choice of a Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS sound track, I opted for the DTS track for my first viewing. This choice in the end really did not make much of a difference, both tracks are of excellent quality and the differences are minimal. The DTS track does seem to give your sub a bit more of a workout, but besides this both are pretty much the same.
All the dialogue was perfectly synchronised and there is no problems understanding the dialogue, plus the Irish accents are not too thick and hard to understand.
Not only does the sub get a fair amount of use, but surround sound is also used to good effect. We have nice ambient surround sounds produced in the bush, plus some of the surround sound use for the gunfire is excellent and a stand out feature of this disc.
THE EXTRAS
There are a handful of extras included on this disc, with the first one being the Featurette Ned Kelly In Popular Culture. This is an excellent, but short, look at the history of Ned Kelly in the public’s eye, including footage from previous Ned Kelly films, including Mick Jagger playing the role of Ned Kelly in the 1970's film of the same name.
On the level of interest, the next extra would be the Artist to Feature Comparison. I found the artist drawings in this to be excellent, especially the picture of the Kelly Gang in full armour. We also have a series of photos of The Real Kelly Gang, the theatrical trailer, the teaser trailer, and lastly four images of the Poster Campaign used for the film.
SUMMARY
For a bit of Australian history, you really cannot go past this excellent film. With excellent cinematic and a great true-life storyline Ned Kelly is a film that every Australian should see at least once, if only to brush up a bit on their Australian history.
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