80
A compelling, grubby outback Western revealing the ragged reality behind a folk hero. Terrific performances, incredible visuals, and a reassertion of Justin Kurzel as a bold filmmaker most comfortable dealing with discomfort.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
83
It’s refreshing to discover that True History has an actual perspective on the events of Ned’s formative years.
83
The Playlist by Charles Bramesco
Kurzel’s prismatic view of Kelly’s life and times goes to gnarlier and more vivid places than superficially similar period pieces.
90
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
The Robin Hood-like renegade hero of the Antipodean common man, Ned Kelly gets a ripping reinvention in director Justin Kurzel's feverish punk Western, a raw rebel yell of a movie that combines visceral violence with a kind of delirious, scrappy poetry.
75
The movie hovers in a curious paradox, coming across as both operatic tribute and horrific condemnation, but it’s never less than a nasty crime drama with plenty of grimy characters to keep the stakes compelling throughout.
100
Lithe and volatile and recklessly stylized to the hilt, True History of the Kelly Gang has moves like Jagger, but a head still teeming with language and history.
80
Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney
While the emotional intensity and somewhat protracted narrative can be exhausting, in visual terms the film is a tour de force, steeped in blood, dust and squalor.
80
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It is a very grueling spectacle, often brilliant, sometimes slightly redundant and perhaps not able to maintain the storytelling rush of its first act. But it is always weirdly plausible in its pure strangeness and in the oddly poignant moments
40
It’s all heading somewhere special as Kelly muses on masculinity and colonialism, but then coherence gives way to flashy visuals and bursts of expressionistic violence.
85
There is a terrible majesty to the landscape and to the story, and Kurzel gives it room to breathe.